Origins and Diffusion of Hinduism and Buddhism

Hinduism, unlike Christianity or Islam, has no single historical founder or founding moment; it developed from the layered fusion of religious elements from the Indus Valley Civilization (flourishing roughly 2500-1900 BCE) with the Vedic religion that Indo-Aryan migrant groups brought into the Punjab region beginning around 1500 BCE. The Rigveda, the oldest of the four Vedas and among the oldest religious texts still in continuous use anywhere in the world, dates from this early Vedic period, while the philosophical Upanishads, composed over the following centuries (roughly 800-200 BCE), introduced the enduring concepts of Brahman (ultimate reality), atman (the self), karma, and moksha (liberation) that underlie later Hindu thought. Out of this long development emerged the major devotional traditions that structure classical and contemporary Hinduism: Vaishnavism (centered on Vishnu and his avatars), Shaivism (centered on Shiva), and Shaktism (centered on the Goddess).