Religion & People
Religion
Religion in India is a way of life. Though Hinduism is the dominant religion, Indians have learned to coexist with peopleof other faiths. The ancient shlokas of the Hindu prayers, the aazaans of the Muslim prayers, the gurvani of the Sikhs, chanting of the Buddhist monks fill the skies simultaneously. The main religious communities in India are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis.

Hinduism
India's major religion, Hinduism is followed by approximately 80% of the population and is one of the oldest extant religions with its roots extending back to 1000 BC. The rituals and the religious practices of the Indus Valley Civilization developed with the influence of the southern Dravidians and the Aryan invaders who came to India around 1500 BC. The religion has gifted a number of Holy books to the world including, the Bhagwad Gita, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Puranas ... more

Islam
Muslims, the followers of Islam, are India's largest religious minority, accounting for nearly 10% of India's population. The founder of Islam, Prophet Mohammed, was born in 570 AD in Mecca, now in Saudi Arabia. He had his first revelation from Allah, in 610 AD. This and later visions led to the compilation of the Holy book- Koran ... more

Buddhism
Although Buddhists are a minority in India, the religion is of great importance as India is the birthplace of this religion. Strictly speaking, Buddhism is not a religion as it is not centred around any one particular God. It is a system of philosophy and a code of morality. Buddhism was founded in northern India, when prince Siddharta renounced the world and sought enlightenment ... more

Sikhs
Sikhism was born of the teachings of Guru Nanak, at the beginning of the 16th Century. This movement rejected the hegemony and the socio-economic divisions of the brahmanical society. Founded by Guru Nanak in 1469, it was intended to bring together the best of Hindu and Islamic religions. Its basic tenets are similar to that of Hinduism, with the important modification that the Sikhs are opposed to caste distinctions ... more

Jainism
Like Buddha, Mahavir was a prince who founded the Jain religion. In fact the two were almost contemporaries. Mahavir was born in 626 BC at Kundalapura, close to Vaishali in Bihar, a city frequently visited by Buddha. He was the 24th and the last of the Jain prophets known as the Tirtankaras or 'finders of the path'. The Jains now number only about 3½ million ... more

Parsis
Founded in Persia by the prophet Zarathustra in the 6th or 7th Century BC, Zorastrianism is one of the oldest religions in the world. He was born in Mazar-i-Sharif, which is now in Afghanistan. The followers of Zorastrianism are known as Pharsis since they originally fled to India to escape persecution in Persia ... more

Christianity
Christians in India are generally found in the western coast and Kerala. Christianity has existed in Kerala for very long, as tradition has it that the first Indian converts were made by St Thomas, the Apostle himself in 52 AD soon after the Crucifixion. St. Thomas preached the Gospel in many parts of India and is said to have been martyred in Madras (now Chennai) where he was was buried in what is now known as the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Mallapur ... more