Ancient Santana Dharma or Vedic religion existed 2500 years prior to Hinduism.+

Ancient Santana Dharma or Vedic religion existed 2500 years prior to Hinduism.  Hinduism which exists today is not a continuation of the ancient Vedic religion or Santana Dharma.

The Indian populace believes Hinduism is Vedic religion or Santana Dharma. They are unaware of the fact that Hinduism is not the ancient Vedic religion or Santana Dharma.

Hinduism hides the truth of the Santana Dharma or Vedic religion. Hinduism is a non-Vedic belief system with non-Vedic Gods, and non-Vedic rituals adopted from different ideologies of different religions. Hinduism is full of non-Vedic Gods and beliefs non-Vedic rituals, full of superstition.

Supreme Court of India:~ Hinduism, as a religion, incorporates all forms of belief without mandating the selection or elimination of any one single belief,“ It is a religion that has no single founder, no single scripture, and no single set of teachings. It has been described as Santana Dharma, namely, eternal faith, as it is the collective wisdom and inspiration of the centuries that Hinduism seeks to preach and propagate” ---Hinduism has no single founder or scripture. : SC, The Times of India (Delhi) Dec 17, 2015

Collectively the Indian populace is identified as Hindus but on an individual level, they identify themselves with their caste, creed, sect, and groups.

As one peeps into the annals of religious history he finds that Hinduism which exists today is not a continuation of the Vedic religion or Santana Dharma, and it has no real historical foundation. Hinduism is of a much later origin.

As per the researchers, the two faiths the Hindu belief system has drifted miles away from the Vedic faith so the two seem to be two distinct faiths. It is not difficult to discover that there is no noticeable continuity of Hinduism from the Vedic religion or Santana Dharma.

The distinctive characteristics of the Hindu belief system cannot be traced in the Vedic literature. Besides, although the Vedas are revered as sacred texts, there are many people in India who do not know what ‘belief in the Vedas’ means. In most cases, the acquaintance of the Hindus with the Vedas is limited to the few hymns that are recited in temples and household liturgies.

Unlike other religions in the world: ~

Hinduism does not claim anyone prophet.

Hinduism does not worship any one God

Hinduism does not subscribe to any one dogma

Hinduism does not believe in any one philosophic concept

Hinduism does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances.

Thus, when it does not appear to satisfy any of the narrow traditional features of any religion or creed,

Hinduism may broadly be described as a way of life and nothing more. Unlike other religions, Hinduism is not tied to any definite set of philosophic concepts as such.

Though philosophic concepts and principles evolved by different thinkers of Hinduism and philosophers varied in many ways and even appeared to conflict with each other in some particulars, they all had reverence for the past and accepted the Vedas as the sole foundation of the philosophy of Hinduism.

Hinduism is a reflection of the composite character of the Hindus, who are not one people but many based on the idea of universal receptivity ever aimed at accommodating itself to circumstances, having swallowed, digested, and assimilated something from all creeds and to the view of Hinduism.

Hinduism is not the ancient Vedic religion or Santana Dharma. Hindu idols or deities or temple is nothing to do with the Vedic religion or Santana Dharma. Vedic people ate beef. In the Hindu practices of idol worship and temple worship, a ban on beef eating was introduced many centuries later.

Max Müller says ~ "The religion of the Veda knows no idols; the worship of idols in India is a secondary formation, a degradation of the more primitive worship of ideal Gods."

Hindus are idol worshipers of a large number of Gods and Goddesses whereas in Vedas the God has been described as:-

The Vedas do not talk about idol worship. In fact, until about 2000 years ago followers of Vedism never worshiped idols. Idol worship was started by the followers of Buddhism and Jains. There is logic to idol worship. Vedas speak of one God that is the supreme ‘Self’ i.e. Atman or Soul but Hinduism indulges in worshiping 60 million Gods.

It indicates clearly all the Gods with form and attributes are mere imaginations based on the false ‘Self’.

Yajur Veda – chapter- 32:~“God is Supreme Spirit has no ‘Pratima’ (idol) or material shape. God cannot be seen directly by anyone. God pervades all beings and all directions. Thus, Idolatry does not find any support from the Vedas.

According to the Vedas God neither has any neither image nor God resides in any particular idol or statue. God cannot be seen directly by anyone. God pervades all beings and all directions.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:~ "He who worships the deities as entities entirely separate from him does not know the truth. For the Gods, he is like a pasu (beast)". (1. 4. 10)

The Vedas as a body of scripture contains many contradictions and they are fragmentary in nature. For Hindus, scriptures like the Bhagavad-Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Puranas are more attractive and appealing than the Vedas. And also, the Gods and Goddesses they worship differ considerably from the Vedic ones. The collection of hymns called Vedas, written in praise of certain deities by poets over several centuries does not seem to have much significance for the Hindus

Yajur Veda says: ~

Translation 1

They enter darkness, those who worship natural things (for example air, water, sun, moon, animals, fire, stone, etc.).

They sink deeper into darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example, table, chair, idol, etc.) (Yajurveda 40:9)

Translation 2

"Deep into the shade of blinding gloom fall asambhuti's worshippers. They sink to darkness deeper yet who on sambhuti is intent." (Yajurveda Samhita by Ralph T. H. Griffith pg. 538)

Translation 3.

"They are enveloped in darkness, in other words, are steeped in ignorance and sunk in the greatest depths of misery who worship the uncreated, eternal prakrti -- the material cause of the world -- in place of the All-pervading God, But those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time." (Yajur Veda 40:9.)

So, Yajur Veda indicates that: ~

They sink deeper into darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example, table, chair, idol, etc (Yajurveda 40:9)

Those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, and bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time." (Yajur Veda 40:9.)

 In Vedas, God has been described as ~

Rig Veda: ~ The Atman (Soul or Spirit) is the cause; Atman is the support of all that exists in this universe. May ye never turn away from the Atman, the ‘Self’. May ye never accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman?" (10:48, 5)

Even in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: ~ Brahman (God) is in the form of the Athma, and it is indeed Athma itself’.

Thus, it clearly indicates that God in truth is without form and attributes and is ever free.

Vedic Gods, hardly have any significance in the present-day Hindu belief system. The Gods and Goddesses important to the Hindus of today are Ram, Krishna, Kali, Ganesh, Hanuman, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, and the respective consorts of the last three, namely, Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Shakti. None of these deities figured prominently in the Vedic pantheon and some of them are clearly non-Vedic. : ~

The more important religious sects among the Hindus, like Vaishnavism, Saivism, and so on, did not have a Vedic origin but had come into existence in comparatively recent times.

Originally Shiva and the cult of the Mother Goddess belonged to the religion of the Indus (Sindhu) Valley people. Vedic worshipers did not use temples and idols as Hindus of today do. For them, sacrificial rituals were more important than the temple or idol worship.

The theory of Avatara (‘descend’) of Gods which is very important to modern Hinduism is non-Vedic.

The term Avatara (…) is not found in the earlier Vedic texts, and is absent from the older Sanskrit glossaries”. The caste system which is so integral to Hinduism was also not practiced in the Vedic times.

There is hardly any evidence of a rigid caste system in the Vedas. It is argued that the purushasukta hymn of the Rig Veda (X.90) which is often referred to in order to give a religious sanction to the caste system was a later interpolation.

The Vedas, however, speak of various classes of people, which appear to have been names of professions, and they were not hereditary.

The very concepts of castes by birth, upper/lower castes, superior/inferior castes, outcasts, untouchables, Dalits, etc. are clearly prohibited by Rig-Veda”.

Avatara (‘descent’) of Gods, caste system, were absent in the Vedic religion. Only when the Vedic religion with its own as distinct with its own sacred texts, rites, rules of social life, beliefs, and practices without interlinking it with Hinduism the true essence of Vedas will be revealed.

Vedic people did not worship Hindu Gods and Goddesses.

Hinduism is not Vedic religion or Santana Dharma. Hindus do idol worship while Vedas bar idol worship. God pervades everything and everywhere.

To be considered an orthodox Hindu one need only accept the authority of Shruti, however, there is no universal agreement among the Hindus on what constitutes Shruti. Vedantins consider the Vedanta, i.e., the Upanishads as Shruti but also include the Bhagavad-Gita and Brahma Sutras as authoritative. For some Vaishnavas, the Bhagavata Purana is to be considered Veda. Some consider the Tantras are considered Veda. Thus, we find that there is ample scope for different philosophies and practices under the very broad umbrella of Hinduism. And all Hindus indulge in non-Vedic practices barred by the Vedas introduced by the different founders of the different sects of Hinduism. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar