The history of Hinduism has been traced as far back as 1500 BCE, and it dominates the culture of India in both secular and religious arenas. At its origin, a nomadic people known as Aryans worshipped a mother goddess as well as "phallic gods, sacred bulls, and in one case a deity in perhaps a yogic meditation posture" (Ellwood 61). The Aryan peoples possessed the Vedas, or basic scriptures of Hinduism, plus a strong priestly class, led by the brahmins, and strict rituals, designed to hold together the order of the cosmos (Ellwood 61, 65-6). What became Hinduism seems also to have incorporated various deities of central Asian peoples and cultures, with the god Brahman, "the One beyond and in all these forms and changes" (Ellwood 69), expressing the unchanging cosmos.
Religious and social beliefs intersect in Hinduism. In Vedic belief, there are four stations of life, called varnas, which correspond to the group structure of Hindu society:
(1) the Brahmins, who are described as priests and scholars; (2) the Kshatrias, who are said to be warriors and rulers; (3) the Vaishyas, who pursue commerce and trades; and (4) the Shudras, who are described as serfs whose duty it is to serve and support the three higher groups (Kinsley 153).
The first group is associated with wisdom and social ideology, or the priestly class, though not all Brahmins are priests. The second group protects society; the third group sees to its material needs. These correspond to Indo-European social groups; the fourth group, which enables the other three to flourish, corresponds to the indigenous Indus peoples whom the Aryans conquered (Ellwood 75). A fifth group, below the Shudras, is the untouchables, and the traditional theory is that no member of one caste may marry one of another (Kinsley 7).
Just as Hindu society is rather structured, so is Hindu belief. Above all, one's karma, or life actions, determines one's spiritual and material fate. However, the...