70 Fun Facts About Hinduism

Roughly how many followers does Hinduism have, making it the world's third-largest religion?

That is about 15 percent of the world's population, mostly in India and Nepal.

What term, meaning 'eternal law', have Hindus used since the 19th century to describe their religion?

The word 'Hindu' itself began as an exonym, a name given by outsiders.

Hindu texts are classified into Shruti and Smriti. What do the two words literally mean?

Shruti, chiefly the Vedas, is regarded as revealed to the rishis and carries the highest authority.

How many Vedas are there?

Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda, each subdivided into Samhitas, Aranyakas, Brahmanas and Upanishads.

Which is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text, composed mostly between about 1500 and 1000 BCE?

Its early layers are among the oldest surviving texts in any Indo-European language.

How many Muktika Upanishads are there, of which 10 to 13 are counted as Principal Upanishads?

Radhakrishnan called them the dominating influence on Hindu thought ever since they appeared.

The Bhagavad Gita is an integral part of which epic?

It is a dialogue between Arjuna and his charioteer Krishna on the eve of the Kurukshetra War.

Which Pandava prince hesitates to fight and receives Krishna's teaching in the Bhagavad Gita?

Krishna urges him to do his duty as a warrior while attributing all actions to God.

How many verses does the Bhagavad Gita traditionally contain?

Some old manuscripts may have had 745, but 700 is the accepted standard.

The Ramayana is traditionally attributed to which sage?

Its nearly 24,000 verses are divided into seven kandas.

Rama, hero of the Ramayana, is which numbered avatar of Vishnu?

He was prince of Ayodhya and spent fourteen years in forest exile with Sita and Lakshmana.

Who kidnaps Sita in the Ramayana?

Hanuman becomes Rama's greatest devotee in the search for her.

What are the four purusharthas, the proper aims of human life?

Dharma (duty) is considered the foremost; moksha is liberation from samsara.

What does the word karma literally mean?

The theory combines causality, ethicisation and rebirth: good and bad actions have consequences, in this life or the next.

What is the Hindu term for the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth?

Liberation from it, moksha, is believed to bring lasting happiness and peace.

In Advaita Vedanta, the individual Self (atman) is held to be identical with what?

Dualist schools like Dvaita instead see Brahman as a Supreme Being separate from individual Selves.

What term for devotion to one god while accepting others is sometimes applied to Hinduism?

The Rig Veda praises various deities, none superior nor inferior, while hinting at One Truth.

Which four denominations of Hinduism are used in scholarly studies?

They differ mainly in which deity is central; many Hindus practise more than one.

Which tradition, focused on the preserver god and his avatars Krishna and Rama, was the largest in 2020?

It had about 399 million followers; Shaivism followed with 385 million and Shaktism with 305 million.

Shaktism, goddess worship of Devi as cosmic mother, is especially common in which region of India?

Its festivals often end with processions and immersion of idols in the sea or rivers.

Which reformer is regarded as founder of the Smarta tradition and its Advaita Vedanta philosophy?

Smartas worship Shiva, Vishnu, Shakti, Ganesha, Surya and Skanda together.

In the Trimurti, which god is the creator, which the preserver and which the destroyer?

The A, U and M of Om are sometimes said to represent the three functions.

Vishnu is depicted sleeping on the coils of which serpent in the ocean of milk?

Shesha represents time; Lakshmi sits with him and Garuda is his mount.

What is the collective name for the ten primary avatars of Vishnu?

The list usually runs Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Narasimha, Vamana, Parashurama, Rama, Krishna or Balarama, Buddha or Krishna, and Kalki.

Krishna is worshipped as which numbered avatar of Vishnu?

Born in Mathura to Devaki and Vasudeva, he was raised by Nanda and Yashoda in Gokul to escape King Kamsa.

Which of these iconographic attributes belongs to Shiva?

He also wears the serpent Vasuki, a crescent moon, and lets the Ganga flow from his matted hair.

In what aniconic form is Shiva usually worshipped?

His vehicle is the bull Nandi.

Brahma's several heads represent what?

He rides a hamsa, a swan or goose, and sits on a lotus.

Ganesha is readily identified by what?

He is the remover of obstacles and patron of arts and sciences, and the son of Parvati and Shiva.

Lakshmi is revered chiefly as the goddess of what?

She accompanies Vishnu in each avatar, as Sita with Rama and Radha or Rukmini with Krishna.

Saraswati, goddess of knowledge and music, is typically portrayed in what colour?

White represents sattva, the quality of goodness.

Durga is best known for slaying which buffalo demon?

She rides a lion or tiger with many arms, each carrying a weapon.

Kali is the goddess of what?

Called Kali Mata, 'the dark mother', she is the consort of Shiva.

Hanuman is traditionally believed to be the spiritual offspring of which god?

He is a chiranjivi, an immortal, and Rama's most devoted follower.

Which 'festival of colours' celebrates the love of Radha and Krishna at the full moon of Phalguna?

It falls around the middle of March and lasts a night and a day.

Diwali marks the return of Rama to Ayodhya after defeating which demon king?

The festival is also widely associated with Lakshmi and Ganesha, and lasts five or six days.

Navaratri, held in honour of Durga, spans how many nights?

It is observed twice a year, in Chaitra (March-April) and Ashvin (September-October).

Which freedom fighter turned Ganesh Chaturthi into a large public celebration in Maharashtra in 1893?

Around 150,000 murtis are immersed in Mumbai alone at the festival's end.

Raksha Bandhan celebrates which relationship?

Bhai Dooj marks the same bond.

The Kumbh Mela rotates among Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and which other city?

The four sites are said to have received drops of amrita, the nectar of immortality, during the churning of the ocean.

About how many people attended the Kumbh Mela in 2025, making it the largest gathering in the world?

That was up from 240 million in 2019.

Varanasi, one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities, sits on which river?

Also called Kashi, it holds a central place in Hindu traditions of pilgrimage, death and mourning.

How long is the river that flows past Varanasi and empties into the Bay of Bengal?

It rises in the Himalayas of Uttarakhand and empties into the Bay of Bengal.

Which sacred syllable, representing Brahman and Atman, has grown to represent Hinduism itself?

It opens and closes chapters of the Vedas and Upanishads.

Where on the body is the tilaka mark placed?

The spot is considered the location of the spiritual third eye; elaborate lines can identify a devotee's denomination.

What is aarati?

'Om Jai Jagdish Hare' is a famous aarati to Vishnu.

What are the four major paths of yoga named in the Bhagavad Gita?

Love and devotion, right action, meditation and wisdom, respectively.

Who wrote the Yoga Sutras, the classical text of Hindu yoga?

They define yoga as 'the stilling of the movements of the mind'.

Ahimsa, non-violence, is the first of the five yamas in whose Yoga Sutras?

Many Hindus embrace vegetarianism in accordance with ahimsa.

Which cattle species does Hinduism specifically consider sacred?

Observant Hindus who eat meat almost always abstain from beef.

What are the four varnas of traditional Hindu society?

Priests, warriors and kings, farmers and merchants, and servants and labourers.

What are the four ashramas, or life stages, of a Hindu?

Student, householder, retired and renunciate; a person may enter Sannyasa at any point after the student stage.

The highest spire of a Hindu temple represents which mountain?

It is the abode of Brahma and the centre of the spiritual universe.

The Gopuram and Nagara temple styles are found respectively in which parts of India?

Almost all temples share a central shrine, the garbhagriha, beneath the main spire.

How does the Hindu calendar keep its lunar cycle in step with the solar year?

The Shalivahana Shaka and Vikram Samvat are the best-known regional calendars.

Which final rite of passage, antyeshti, is performed for adults?

Children are buried; other sanskaras include naming, first solid food and first haircut.

Which Hindu monk opened his 1893 Chicago speech with 'Sisters and brothers of America'?

He was the chief disciple of the mystic Ramakrishna and toured the US and Europe afterward.

Which are the six branches of Hindu philosophy that evolved in the classical Gupta 'Golden Age'?

The Golden Age of about 320-650 CE coincided with the Gupta Empire.

Ayurveda describes health as a balance of which three doshas?

Dhanvantari is the Hindu deity of Ayurveda.

What percentage of the world's Hindus live in India?

Nepal is the only other Hindu-majority country; Bangladesh has more than 10 million Hindus.

Which classical grammar by Panini codified Sanskrit, the sacred language of Hinduism?

Its name means 'Eight chapters'.

What is a Hindu monk called?

A female renunciate is a sanyasini; some live in monasteries, others wander depending on charity.

The Bhakti movement rose to prominence during which period of Indian history?

It flourished under both Hindu and Islamic rulers and remains influential today.

The word 'Hindu' derives from Sindhu, the Sanskrit name of which river?

The term is an exonym, and Sindhu also named the country of the lower Indus basin, Sindh.

Which reformer may have been the first Indian to use the word 'Hinduism', in 1816-17?

By the 1840s the term was used by Indians opposing British colonialism to distinguish themselves from Muslims and Christians.

Outside India, which country has the largest Hindu population, at more than 20 million?

Bangladesh follows with more than 10 million; Pakistan, Indonesia and Sri Lanka each have three to six million.

Which Vietnamese people, concentrated in Ninh Thuan Province, largely follow Hinduism?

The Tenggerese people of Java in Indonesia are also mostly Hindu.

Which people of Pakistan practise an indigenous religion resembling the ancient Vedic religion?

An origin story claims they descend from Alexander the Great's soldiers, but the faith is Indo-Iranian in character.

Which African country has a convert community founded by Swami Ghanananda Saraswati?

The converts are associated with the Hindu Monastery of Africa, which he established in Accra.

In which Portuguese colony did a 1560 inquisition persecute Hindus?

Historic persecutions also occurred under some Muslim rulers.