Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices

This text is a vastly complex phenomenon, a world religion with a history of over 3000 years. It has produced men and women who have made contributions across the range of civilized human behaviour, and played a crucial part in the rise of two other great religions - Buddhism and Sikhism. Julius Lipner was born and raised in India and is able to draw on his own experience of Hindu beliefs and practices to explain what it means to be Hindu in a changing world. The book examines the religion as a plural phenomenon - that is, as a family of religions, rather than a monolithic entity. The approach is thematic, and the author considers various topics - such as the status of women - in more than one place and from more than one angle. He also tells and sometimes analyses Hindu stories, stressing the narrative quality of Hindu religion and giving us an insight into the nature of the Hindu phenomenon itself. It should be of interest on more than one level: as a source of instruction, as a basis for discussion, seminars amd further study, even as a challenge for further research.