Hinduism Vs Christianity Essay

Hinduism and Christianity are the most popular religions in today’s world. They are considered as eastern and western religions. Hinduism is considered the world’s oldest religion, on the other hand, Christianity is considered as the world’s largest religion. In each religion, there are certain rituals that a person has to perform throughout their lifetime. In this paper, I am going to compare the three main rituals of Hinduism and Christianity. The three important rituals include the initiation ceremony, marriage ceremony, and the death ceremony. In Hinduism, there are many initiation ceremonies; however, Upanyana is the main ceremony, which gives the Hindus the permission to study the Vedas and Upanishads, which is considered as the most

Hinduism has sixteen stages of rituals and each stage is dedicated to God by a ritual called the ‘Samskara’. The Samskaras, or rituals, start with the birth ceremony and end with the death ceremony cremation. The most important Samskara in the Hindu religious life is known as the Upanyana or the sacred thread ceremony. This ceremony is performed on children between the ages eight or twelve. Upanyana goes back to 3000 BCE before the birth of Lord Krishna. The boy's head is shaved prior to the initiation in order to symbolize the second birth. He needs to get his head shaved in order to enter into the austere life detaching himself from his previous life. Then the bathing ceremony is conducted with holy water. In Upanyana, the young boy is given the sacred thread, which is tied on his wrist, and hence obtains the religious right to study Vedas and Upanishads. There are three threads, which are tied together to make one sacred thread. They are supposed to remind the Hindu that he must control mind, speech and body and they stand for the three major Hindu deities - Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. The knot used to tie these three strands together is called "Bhrama granthi". The ceremony ends with a ritual bath after which he is entitled as "Snatak". This ritual bath symbolizes the boy's new role in