Реферат: Hinduism Essay Research Paper HinduismTable of ContentsIntroduction

His second right hand is raised for blessing, while his second left hand points

to the raised left foot (symbolizes release). The right foot treads on a dwarf

that represents ignorance and spiritual blindness.

Life Before and After Death

A Hindu believes and hopes that eventually his soul will join with

Brahman. They welcome death as a step towards gaining this everlasting union

with him. They believe that their souls were never born and therefore never

dies, but it moves on from one body to another. This movement form one body to

another in the cycle of birth death and re-birth is called reincarnation. This

belief that a person will be born again following the death is linked with the

law of karma. They also believe that the type of existence a person will

experience in the next life depends on the good and bad karma built up in the

previous life.

The white cows are considered holy because they believe that they are a

symbol of “atman”, which means the soul in all living things.

The Caste System

A caste is a group of people with a particular place in society. Hindu

people are born into their caste, wether high or low, they must accept their

place without question. This means that a person can only be born a Hindu. To

maintain purity Hindus can only marry within their caste, they can only eat with

members of their caste, and the men follow occupation of their caste which are

passed from father to son.

The difficulty that arise by the observing the caste system is that

there are a large group of people who are classified as being outside of the

caste system, some examples of this are untouchables and outcastes. These

people are among the poorest and least educated people in India and they do all

of the dirty work. Even though the government has passed laws against

classifying people as untouchable, they still feel that customs die hard,

therefore, there is still discrimination and hostility against them.