Hinduism

Major world religion originating on the Indian subcontinent and comprising several and varied
systems of philosophy, belief, and ritual. Although the name Hinduism is relatively new, having
been coined by British writers in the first decades of the 19th century, it refers to a
rich cumulative tradition of texts and practices, some of which date to the 2nd
millennium BCE or possibly earlier. If the Indus valley civilization (3rd–2nd
millennium BCE) was the earliest source of these traditions, as some scholars hold, then
Hinduism is the oldest living religion on Earth. Its many sacred texts
in Sanskrit and vernacular languages served as a vehicle for spreading the religion to other
parts of the world, though ritual and the visual and performing arts also played a significant
role in its transmission. From about the 4th century BCE, Hinduism had a dominant presence
in Southeast Asia, one that would last for more than 1,000 years.

In the early 21st century, Hinduism had nearly one billion adherents worldwide and was the
religion of about 80 percent of India’s population. Despite its global presence, however, it is
best understood through its many distinctive regional manifestations.

Overview
The term Hinduism
The term Hinduism became familiar as a designator of religious

ideas and practices distinctive to India with the publication of books

such as Hinduism (1877) by Sir Monier Monier-Williams, the

notable Oxford scholar and author of an influential Sanskrit dictionary.

Initially it was an outsiders’ term, building on centuries-old usages of

the word Hindu. Early travelers to the Indus valley, beginning with the

Greeks and Persians, spoke of its inhabitants as “Hindu” Ganesha, God of beginnings The
(Greek: ‘indoi), elephant-headed Hindu god
Ganesha—deity of beginnings,
and, in the 16th century, residents of India themselves began very wisdom, and prosperity—adorning
an external wall of a temple in
slowly to employ the term to distinguish themselves from the Turks. Kerala, India.

Gradually the distinction became primarily religious rather than ethnic, geographic, or cultural.

Since the late 19th century, Hindus have reacted to the term Hinduism in several ways. Some
have rejected it in favor of indigenous formulations. Others have preferred “Vedic religion,”
using the term Vedic to refer not only to the ancient religious texts known as the Vedas but also

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to a fluid corpus of sacred works in multiple languages and an orthoprax (traditionally
sanctioned) way of life. Still others have chosen to call the religion sanatana dharma (“eternal
law”), a formulation made popular in the 19th century and emphasizing the timeless elements
of the tradition that are perceived to transcend local interpretations and practice. Finally, others,
perhaps the majority, have simply accepted the term Hinduism or its analogues,
especially hindu dharma (Hindu moral and religious law), in various Indic languages.

Since the early 20th century, textbooks on Hinduism have been written by Hindus themselves,
often under the rubric of sanatana dharma. These efforts at self-explanation add a new layer to
an elaborate tradition of explaining practice and doctrine that dates to the 1st millennium bce.
The roots of Hinduism can be traced back much farther—both textually, to the schools of
commentary and debate preserved in epic and Vedic writings from the 2nd millennium bce,
and visually, through artistic representations of yakshas (luminous spirits associated with
specific locales and natural phenomena) and nagas (cobralike divinities), which
were worshipped from about 400 bce. The roots of the tradition are also sometimes traced back
to the female terra-cotta figurines found ubiquitously in excavations of sites associated with
the Indus valley civilization and sometimes interpreted as goddesses.

General nature of Hinduism

More strikingly than any other major religious community, Hindus accept—and indeed
celebrate—the organic, multileveled, and sometimes pluralistic nature of their traditions. This
expansiveness is made possible by the widely shared Hindu view that truth or reality cannot
be encapsulated in any creedal formulation, a perspective expressed in the Hindu prayer “May
good thoughts come to us from all sides.” Thus, Hinduism maintains that truth must be sought
in multiple sources, not dogmatically proclaimed.

Anyone’s view of the truth—even that of a guru regarded as possessing superior authority—is
fundamentally conditioned by the specifics of time, age, gender, state of consciousness, social
and geographic location, and stage of attainment. These multiple perspectives enhance a broad
view of religious truth rather than diminish it; hence, there is a strong tendency for
contemporary Hindus to affirm that tolerance is the foremost religious virtue. On the other
hand, even cosmopolitan Hindus living in a global environment recognize and value the fact
that their religion has developed in the specific context of the Indian subcontinent. Such a
tension between universalist and particularist impulses has long animated the Hindu tradition.
When Hindus speak of their religious identity as sanatana dharma, they emphasize its
continuous, seemingly eternal (sanatana) existence and the fact that it describes a web of
customs, obligations, traditions, and ideals (dharma) that far exceeds the Western tendency to
think of religion primarily as a system of beliefs. A common way in which English-speaking
Hindus often distance themselves from that frame of mind is to insist that Hinduism is not a
religion but a way of life.

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The five tensile strands
Across the sweep of Indian religious history, at least five elements have given shape to the
Hindu religious tradition: doctrine, practice, society, story, and devotion. These five elements,
to adopt a typical Hindu metaphor, are understood as relating to one another as strands in an
elaborate braid. Moreover, each strand develops out of a history of conversation, elaboration,
and challenge. Hence, in looking for what makes the tradition cohere, it is sometimes better to
locate central points of tension than to expect clear agreements on Hindu thought and practice.

Doctrine
The first of the five strands of Hinduism is doctrine, as expressed in a vast textual tradition
anchored to the Veda (“Knowledge”), the oldest core of Hindu religious utterance, and
organized through the centuries primarily by members of the learned Brahman class. Here
several characteristic tensions appear. One concerns the relationship between the divine and
the world. Another tension concerns the disparity between the world-preserving ideal of
dharma and that of moksha (release from an inherently flawed world). A third tension exists
between individual destiny, as shaped by karma (the influence of one’s actions on one’s present
and future lives), and the individual’s deep bonds to family, society, and the divinities
associated with these concepts.

Practice
The second strand in the fabric of Hinduism is practice. Many Hindus, in fact, would place this
first. Despite India’s enormous diversity, a common grammar of ritual behavior connects
various places, strata, and periods of Hindu life. While it is true that various elements of Vedic
ritual survive in modern practice and thereby serve a unifying function, much more influential
commonalities appear in the worship of icons or images (murti, pratima, or archa). Broadly,
this is called puja (“honoring [the deity]”); if performed in a temple by a priest, it is
called archana. It echoes conventions of hospitality that might be performed for an honored
guest, especially the giving and sharing of food. Such food is
called prasada (Hindi, prasad meaning “grace”), reflecting the recognition that when human
beings make offerings to deities, the initiative is not really theirs. They are actually responding
to the generosity that bore them into a world fecund with life and possibility.
The divine personality installed as a home or temple image receives prasada, tasting it (Hindus
differ as to whether this is a real or symbolic act, gross or subtle) and offering the remains to
worshipers. Some Hindus also believe that prasada is infused with the grace of the deity to
whom it is offered. Consuming these leftovers, worshipers accept their status as beings inferior
to and dependent upon the divine. An element of tension arises because the logic
of puja and prasada seems to accord all humans an equal status with respect to God, yet
exclusionary rules have sometimes been sanctified rather than challenged by prasada-based
ritual.

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Society
The third strand that has served to organize Hindu life is society. Early visitors to India from
Greece and China and, later, others such as the Persian scholar and scientist al-Bīrūnī, who
traveled to India in the early 11th century, were struck by the highly stratified (if locally variant)
social structure that has come to be called familiarly the caste system. While it is true that there
is a vast disparity between the ancient vision of society as divided into four ideal classes
(varnas) and the contemporary reality of thousands of endogamous birth-groups (jatis, literally
“births”), few would deny that Indian society is notably plural and hierarchical. This fact has
much to do with an understanding of truth or reality as being similarly plural and
multilayered—though it is not clear whether the influence has proceeded chiefly from religious
doctrine to society or vice versa. Seeking its own answer to this conundrum, a well-known
Vedic hymn (Rigveda 10.90) describes how, at the beginning of time,
the primordial person Purusha underwent a process of sacrifice that produced a four-part
cosmos and its human counterpart, a four-part social order comprising Brahmans
(priests), Kshatriyas (warriors and nobles), Vaishyas (commoners), and Shudras (servants).

The social domain, like the realms of religious practice and doctrine, is marked by a
characteristic tension. There is the view that each person or group approaches truth in a way
that is necessarily distinct, reflecting its own perspective. Only by allowing each to speak and
act in such terms can a society constitute itself as a proper representation of truth or reality. Yet
this context-sensitive habit of thought can too easily be used to legitimate social systems based
on privilege and prejudice. If it is believed that no standards apply universally, one group can
too easily justify its dominance over another. Historically, therefore, certain Hindus, while
espousing tolerance at the level of doctrine, have maintained caste distinctions in the social
realm.

The Caste System in Hinduism

The caste system in India is considered to be the classic example of caste and the world's oldest
surviving form of social stratification at around 3,000 years old. India's caste system classifies
Hindus into four varnas (classes) based on their occupation:

▪ A Brahmin is a member of the highest caste or varna and is an incarnation of knowledge.

▪ The Kshatriyas are the second-highest of the four varnas representing warriors and
aristocracy.

▪ Vaishyas (business people) are the third class of the caste system.

▪ Sudras (laborers) are the lowest of the four classes of the caste system.

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What is the Caste System in India?
The caste system is a way of dividing society into hereditary classes. The caste system in
India originated with the arrival of the Aryans in India around 1,500 BC. Transformed by
Indian history over the centuries, especially by the Mughal Empire and the British Raj as a
means of social control, India's caste system consists of two different concepts: varna and Jati.

Varna
Varna is a Sanskrit word that is translated as 'class'. Varna is an ancient division with origin in
the Vedas (the oldest texts of Hinduism). The caste system was called the varna system in Vedic
society (c. 1100 – c. 500 BCE). The purpose of the varna system was to distribute
responsibilities among the people. The four social classes in the Varna system are:

▪ Brahmins: priests and teachers

▪ Kshatriyas: warriors and rulers
▪ Vaishyas: farmers, traders, and merchants
▪ Shudras: laborers
Each varna covers certain aspects in the society, if all the four varnas prosper in their respective
functions, society is healthy, prosperous, strong, and free.

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Jati
Jati is from a Sanskrit root jaha meaning to be born. A jati describes a group or community that
has generic hereditary characteristics and requires endogamy (marriage within the same group).

To maintain the purity of the varnas and establish eternal order, each jati had its customs and
rituals. A person's jati determined his/her occupation and status, and those with whom he/she
was permitted to eat and drink with, to interact with socially, and to marry.

There are only four varnas, but each varna contains many jatis. There are more than 3,000 jatis
and these different jatis all fall under one of the four basic varnas.

The 4 casts in Hinduism

Brahmins: Highest Caste in India
In Hindu scripture, Brahmin originated from the head of Purush, so they are at the top of the
varna hierarchy. Brahmin consist of priests and teachers. They have the privilege of interpreting
religious scriptures and sacrificing to gods, the right to enjoy religious dedication, and the best
education. They were in charge of the teaching of cultural education and reporting on
agricultural seasons and the interpretation of religious discourse. They also had key positions
in science, business, and government.

Although Brahmins have many privileges, many activities are forbidden to Brahmins,
including making weapons, butchering animals, making or selling poisons, trapping wildlife,
and other jobs associated with death. Brahmins live with strict austerity and voluntary poverty.
They are very strict vegetarians and conform to many other Hindu beliefs.

For Brahmin women, chastity gets unequaled respect, Brahmin women usually only marry a
Brahmin as inter-caste marriages are considered an imperfect match, culminating in ignoble
offspring. But under some conditions, Kshatriya or Vaishya are allowed to marry a Brahmin.
Shudra men are prohibited.

Brahmins comprise a small part of the Indian population — only about 5%. They are mainly
distributed in the northern states of India like Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, with a lesser
number in the southern states including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala.

Kshatriyas: Second Highest of the Four Varnas

Kshatriyas, it is written, come from the arms of Purush, and they are considered to be the
second highest caste in the varna system or the second social classes.

Kshatriyas exercise temporal authority and power and their main occupations are warriors and
rulers. They have the privilege of collecting various taxes, and they are in charge of the army.
They are responsible for guarding the Brahmin class.

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Kshatriyas traditionally learn weaponry, warfare, penance, austerity, administration, moral
conduct, justice, and often start ruling from an early age.

The Kshatriyas had wealth and power and were permitted material indulgence like eating meat,
and many also enjoyed alcoholic drinks. These characteristics set them apart from the
Brahmins.

Kshatriyas are allowed to marry a woman of all varnas, but Kshatriya or Brahmin women are
considered the best option. The Kshatriyas make up around 4% of India's population and are
mainly located in the north of India.

Vaishya: Third Highest of the Four Varnas

Vaishyas are described as commoners and they are the third highest of the four varnas that were
penned as coming from the thighs of the first man.

Vaishyas mainly control commercial and agricultural occupations. They don't have political
privileges, but they become strong economically because of their close relation to commerce
and many become traders, merchants, landowners, and money-lenders.

Vaishyas support Kshatriyas and Brahmins by sacrificing, giving gifts, providing food through
agriculture, and money through taxes. Vaishyas play an important role in the public sphere,
providing artisans with technical education, but they are still considered as a lower caste.

Sudras: Lowest Caste

Sudras are the lowest rank of the four Hindu castes and are considered to come from the feet
of Purush. They are mainly composed of artisans, laborers, and high-level servants and
craftsmen, including those who serve meals and cook.

Sudras are the most populous caste, making up nearly half of India's population. As the default
varna, many of this caste are a product of the marriage of an upper caste member or even an
Untouchable and a Sudra.

Because Sudras are believed to be created from feet, they face a lot of discrimination from the
higher castes and are not permitted to have the same rights and privileges as higher castes, like
being "twice-born" (initiation into a Vedic school) and offering certain sacrifices.

-- -- -- --

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Story
Ravana Ravana, the 10-headed demon king, detail
from a Guler painting of the Ramayana, c. 1720.

Another dimension drawing Hindus into a

single community of discourse is narrative. For at least
two millennia, people in almost all corners of India—
and now well beyond—have responded to stories of
divine play and of interactions between gods and
humans. These stories concern major figures in the
Hindu pantheon: Krishna and his
lover Radha, Rama and his wife Sita and brother
Lakshmana, Shiva and his consort Parvati (or, in a
different birth, Sati), and the Great Goddess Durga, or Devi, as a slayer of the buffalo demon
Mahisasura. Often such narratives illustrate the interpenetration of the divine and human
spheres, with deities such as Krishna and Rama entering entirely into the human drama. Many
tales focus in different degrees on genealogies of human experience, forms of love, and the
struggle between order and chaos or between duty and play. In generating, performing, and
listening to these stories, Hindus have often experienced themselves as members of a single
imagined family. Yet, simultaneously, these narratives serve to articulate tensions connected
with righteous behavior and social inequities. Thus, the Ramayana, traditionally a testament of
Rama’s righteous victories, is sometimes told by women performers as the story of Sita’s
travails at Rama’s hands. In north India lower-caste musicians present religious epics such
as Alha or Dhola in terms that reflect their own experience of the world rather than the upper-
caste milieu of the great Sanskrit religious epic the Mahabharata, which these epics nonetheless
echo. To the broadly known, pan-Hindu, male-centered narrative traditions, these variants
provide both resonance and challenge.

Devotion
There is a fifth strand that contributes to the unity of Hindu experience through
time: bhakti (“sharing” or “devotion”), a broad tradition of a loving God that is especially
associated with the lives and words of vernacular poet-saints throughout India. Devotional
poems attributed to these inspired figures, who represent both genders and all social classes,
have elaborated a store of images and moods to which access can be had in a score of
languages. Bhakti verse first appeared in Tamil in south India and moved northward into other
regions with different languages. Individual poems are sometimes strikingly similar from one
language or century to another, without there being any trace of mediation through the pan-
Indian, distinctly upper-caste language Sanskrit. Often, individual motifs in the lives
of bhakti poet-saints also bear strong family resemblances. With its central affirmation that
religious faith is more fundamental than rigidities of practice or doctrine, bhakti provides a

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common challenge to other aspects of Hindu life. At the same time, it contributes to a common
Hindu heritage—even a common heritage of protest. Yet certain expressions of bhakti are far
more confrontational than others in their criticism of caste, image worship, and the
performance of vows, pilgrimages, and acts of self-mortification.

Central conceptions
In the following sections, various aspects of this complex whole will be addressed, relying
primarily on a historical perspective of the development of the Hindu tradition. This approach
has its costs, for it may seem to give priority to aspects of the tradition that appear in its
earliest extant texts. These texts owe their preservation mainly to the labors of upper-caste men,
especially Brahmans, and often reveal far too little about the perspectives of others. They
should be read, therefore, both with and against the grain, with due attention paid to silences
and absent rebuttals on behalf of women, regional communities, and people of low status—all
of whom nowadays call themselves Hindus or identify with groups that can sensibly be placed
within the broad Hindu span.

Veda, Brahmans, and issues of religious authority

For members of the upper castes, a principal characteristic of Hinduism has traditionally been
a recognition of the Veda, the most ancient body of Indian religious literature, as an absolute
authority revealing fundamental and unassailable truth. The Veda is also regarded as the basis
of all the later shastra texts, which stress the religious merits of the Brahmans—including, for
example, the medical corpus known as the Ayurveda. Parts of the Veda are quoted in essential
Hindu rituals (such as the wedding ceremony), and it is the source of many enduring patterns
of Hindu thought, yet its contents are practically unknown to most Hindus. Most Hindus
venerate it from a distance. In the past, groups who rejected its authority outright (such
as Buddhists and Jains) were regarded by Hindus as heterodox, but now they are often
considered to be part of a larger family of common Indic traditions.

Another characteristic of much Hindu thought is its special regard for Brahmans as a priestly
class possessing spiritual supremacy by birth. As special manifestations of religious power and
as bearers and teachers of the Veda, Brahmans have often been thought to represent an ideal of
ritual purity and social prestige. Yet this has also been challenged, either by competing claims
to religious authority—especially from kings and other rulers—or by the view that Brahman-
hood is a status attained by depth of learning, not birth. Evidence of both these challenges can
be found in Vedic literature itself, especially the Upanishads (speculative religious texts that
provide commentary on the Vedas), and bhakti literature is full of vignettes in which the small-
mindedness of Brahmans is contrasted with true depth of religious experience, as exemplified
by poet-saints such as Kabir and Ravidas.

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Doctrine of atman-brahman
Most Hindus believe in brahman, an uncreated, eternal, infinite, transcendent, and all-
embracing principle. Brahman contains in itself both being and nonbeing, and it is the sole
reality—the ultimate cause, foundation, source, and goal of all existence. As the
All, brahman either causes the universe and all beings to emanate from itself, transforms itself
into the universe, or assumes the appearance of the universe. Brahman is in all things and is
the self (atman) of all living beings. Brahman is the creator, preserver, or transformer and re-
absorber of everything. Hindus differ, however, as to whether this ultimate reality is
best conceived as lacking attributes and qualities—the impersonal brahman—or as a personal
God, especially Vishnu, Shiva, or Shakti (these being the preferences of adherents
called Vaishnavas, Shaivas, and Shaktas, respectively). Belief in the importance of the search
for a One that is the All has been a characteristic feature of India’s spiritual life for more than
3,000 years.

Karma, samsara, and moksha

Hindus generally accept the doctrine of transmigration and rebirth and the complementary
belief in karma. The whole process of rebirth, called samsara, is cyclic, with no clear beginning
or end, and encompasses lives of perpetual, serial attachments. Actions generated by desire and
appetite bind one’s spirit (jiva) to an endless series of births and deaths. Desire motivates any
social interaction (particularly when involving sex or food), resulting in the mutual exchange
of good and bad karma. In one prevalent view, the very meaning of salvation is emancipation
(moksha) from this morass, an escape from the impermanence that is an inherent feature
of mundane existence. In this view the only goal is the one permanent and eternal principle:
the One, God, brahman, which is totally opposite to phenomenal existence. People who have
not fully realized that their being is identical with brahman are thus seen as deluded.
Fortunately, the very structure of human experience teaches the ultimate identity
between brahman and atman. One may learn this lesson by different means: by realizing one’s
essential sameness with all living beings, by responding in love to a personal expression of
the divine, or by coming to appreciate that the competing attentions and moods of one’s
waking consciousness are grounded in a transcendental unity—one has a taste of this unity in
the daily experience of deep, dreamless sleep.

Dharma and the three paths

Hindus acknowledge the validity of several paths (margas) toward such release.
The Bhagavadgita (“Song of God”; c. 100 ce), an extremely influential Hindu text, presents
three paths to salvation: the karma-marga (“path of ritual action” or “path of duties”), the
disinterested discharge of ritual and social obligations; the jnana-marga (“path of knowledge”),
the use of meditative concentration preceded by long and systematic ethical and contemplative
training (Yoga) to gain a supraintellectual insight into one’s identity with brahman; and

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the bhakti-marga (“path of devotion”), love for a personal God. These ways are regarded as
suited to various types of people, but they are interactive and potentially available to all.

Although the pursuit of moksha is institutionalized in Hindu life through ascetic practice and
the ideal of withdrawing from the world at the conclusion of one’s life, many Hindus ignore
such practices. The Bhagavadgita states that because action is inescapable, the three paths are
better thought of as simultaneously achieving the goals of world maintenance (dharma) and
world release (moksha). Through the suspension of desire and ambition and through
detachment from the fruits (phala) of one’s actions, one is enabled to float free of life while
engaging it fully. This matches the actual goals of most Hindus, which include executing
properly one’s social and ritual duties; supporting one’s caste, family, and profession; and
working to achieve a broader stability in the cosmos, nature, and society. The designation of
Hinduism as sanatana dharma emphasizes this goal of maintaining personal and
universal equilibrium, while at the same time calling attention to the important role played by
the performance of traditional religious practices in achieving that goal. Because no one person
can occupy all the social, occupational, and age-defined roles that are requisite to maintaining
the health of the life-organism as a whole, universal maxims (e.g., ahimsa, the desire not to
harm) are qualified by the more-particular dharmas that are appropriate to each of the four
major varnas: Brahmans (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors and nobles), Vaishyas (commoners),
and Shudras (servants). These four categories are superseded by the more practically applicable
dharmas appropriate to each of the thousands of particular castes (jatis). And these, in turn, are
crosscut by the obligations appropriate to one’s gender and stage of life (ashrama). In principle
then, Hindu ethics is exquisitely context-sensitive, and Hindus expect and celebrate a wide
variety of individual behaviors.

European and American scholars have often overemphasized the so-called “life-negating”
aspects of Hinduism—the rigorous disciplines of Yoga, for example. The polarity
of asceticism and sensuality, which assumes the form of a conflict between the aspiration for
liberation and the heartfelt desire to have descendants and continue earthly life, manifests itself
in Hindu social life as the tension between the different goals and stages of life. For many
centuries the relative value of an active life and the performance of meritorious works
(pravritti), as opposed to the renunciation of all worldly interests and activity (nivriti), has been
a much-debated issue. While philosophical works such as the Upanishads emphasized
renunciation, the dharma texts argued that the householder who maintains his sacred fire,
begets children, and performs his ritual duties well also earns religious merit. Nearly 2,000
years ago these dharma texts elaborated the social doctrine of the four ashramas (“abodes”).
This concept was an attempt to harmonize the conflicting tendencies of Hinduism into one
system. It held that a male member of any of the three higher classes should first become a
chaste student (brahmacharin); then become a married householder (grihastha), discharging his
debts to his ancestors by begetting sons and to the gods by sacrificing; then retire (as
a vanaprastha), with or without his wife, to the forest to devote himself to spiritual
contemplation; and finally, but not mandatorily, become a homeless wandering ascetic

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(sannyasin). The situation of the forest dweller was always a delicate compromise that was
often omitted or rejected in practical life.

Although the householder was often extolled—some authorities, regarding studentship a mere
preparation for this ashrama, went so far as to brand all other stages inferior—there were
always people who became wandering ascetics immediately after studentship. Theorists were
inclined to reconcile the divergent views and practices by allowing the ascetic way of life to
those who were entirely free from worldly desire (owing to the effects of restrained conduct in
former lives), even if they had not gone through the traditional prior stages.

The texts describing such life stages were written by men for men; they paid scant attention to
stages appropriate for women. The Manu-smriti (100 CE; Laws of Manu), for example, was
content to regard marriage as the female equivalent of initiation into the life of a student,
thereby effectively denying the student stage of life to girls. Furthermore, in the householder
stage, a woman’s purpose was summarized under the heading of service to her husband. What
we know of actual practice, however, challenges the idea that these patriarchal norms were ever
perfectly enacted or that women entirely accepted the values they presupposed. While some
women became ascetics, many more focused their religious lives on realizing a state of
blessedness that was understood to be at once this-worldly and expressive of a larger cosmic
well-being. Women have often directed the cultivation of the auspicious life-giving force
(shakti) they possess to the benefit of their husbands and families, but, as an ideal, this force
has independent status.

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THE END

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 REligioN sTuDiEs
AssigNmENT = HiNDuism
PRof. ANwAR
BilAl AHmED # Roll. No 33
DEPARTmENT: sociology
BATcH: 2021—2025
govERNmENT PosT gRADuATE
collEgE sARiAB RoAD QuETTA
BAlocHisTAN
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