Latini 2 Marc Latini
Professor Eckert
10/23/17
Mid-term Exam India’s social structure has always been based on their religion, Hinduism, and has been for hundreds of years as it is considered the oldest surviving religion in the world today. Hinduism first began around 1500 BC and has had a vast effect on Indian life ever since. Hinduism started to change the way people thought about the world and inspired Hindu’s to have new beliefs on the world itself. The main belief that people associate directly to Hinduism is their belief of reincarnation or Samsara. Hinduism is a polytheistic religion meaning they worship multiple gods. Throughout history, these Hindu beliefs have had many effects on the Indian social structure and Indian culture.
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These three aspects have greatly affected Indian’s social structure over the past thousand years. Samsara is the Hindu belief that people are reincarnated after they die and sent back to Earth. However, their second life’s social class would depend on their behavior in their last life. This is where Kharma and Dharma come into play. Kharma is the belief that you need to do good things and act out in good ways in order to benefit in your next life. Dharma is known as a person’s way of life in Hinduism and their duty to keep Hindu society together (Rise and Spread of Indian Civilization). These beliefs kept many Hinduism followers in line and kept them wanting to do good things and never act out in a bad way. However, if you do act out in bad ways, Hindu people believe that your afterlife is worse than the one you had before. However, if you carry out good deeds and follow the religion closely your afterlife will be better than your last one based on the caste system. The caste system is a social class system in Hindu culture. The belief is that your social class is given to you at birth and no later (Rise and Spread of Indian Civilization). For example if you were a scholar and carried out your life in harmful ways you would be demoted in your next life with your class given to you at birth. Also, your social class could never change