Hinduism is an Indian religion or dharma, a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. The word Hindu is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, it has also been described as sanātana dharma, a modern usage, based on the belief that its origins lie beyond human history, as revealed in the Hindu texts. Another endonym for Hinduism is Vaidika dharma.
Hindus are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent.
Southeast Asia is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and north-west of mainland Australia which is part of Oceania. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of 26 atolls of Maldives in South Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. Mainland Southeast Asia is entirely in the Northern Hemisphere. East Timor and the southern portion of Indonesia are the parts of Southeast Asia that lie south of the Equator.
Hinduism in Southeast Asia had a profound impact on the region's cultural development and its history. As the Indic scripts were introduced from India, people of Southeast Asia entered the historical period by producing their earliest inscriptions around the 1st to 5th century CE. Today, Hindus in Southeast Asia are mainly Overseas Indians and Balinese. There are also Javanese and Balamon Cham minority in Cambodia and south central Vietnam who also practice Hinduism.
The world's principal religions and spiritual traditions may be classified into a small number of major groups, though this is not a uniform practice. This theory began in the 18th century with the goal of recognizing the relative levels of civility in different societies, but this practice has since fallen into disrepute in many contemporary cultures.
Balinese Hinduism is the form of Hinduism practised by the majority of the population of Bali. This is particularly associated with the Balinese people residing on the island, and represents a distinct form of Hindu worship incorporating local animism, ancestor worship or Pitru Paksha, and reverence for Buddhist saints or Bodhisattava.
Hinduism has historically been a major religious and cultural influence in Java, Indonesia. Hinduism was the dominant religion in the region before the arrival of Islam. In recent years, it has also been enjoying something of a resurgence, particularly in the eastern part of the island.
Hinduism has been found in the Middle East since the mid-19th century. Millions of members of the Indian diaspora, of different religions, reside and work in Arab states of the Persian Gulf; many of them are Hindu. Many came due to the migration of Indians and Nepalese expatriates and employees to the area around the Persian Gulf.
Hinduism has approximately 1.2 billion adherents worldwide. Hinduism is the third largest religion in the world behind Christianity (31.5%) and Islam (23.3%).
Hinduism is the third-largest religion in Indonesia, based on civil registration data in 2022 from Ministry of Home Affairs, is practised by about 1.69% of the total population, and almost 87% of the population in Bali. Hinduism was the dominant religion in the country before the arrival of Islam and is one of the six official religions of Indonesia today. Hinduism came to Indonesia in the 1st-century through Indian traders, sailors, scholars and priests. A syncretic fusion of pre-existing Javanese folk religion, culture and Hindu ideas, that from the 6th-century also synthesized Buddhist ideas as well, evolved as the Indonesian version of Hinduism. These ideas continued to develop during the Srivijaya and Majapahit empires. About 1400 CE, these kingdoms were introduced to Islam from coast-based Muslim traders, and thereafter Hinduism, which was previously the dominant religion in the region, mostly vanished from many of the islands of Indonesia.
The history of Hinduism covers a wide variety of related religious traditions native to the Indian subcontinent. It overlaps or coincides with the development of religion in the Indian subcontinent since the Iron Age, with some of its traditions tracing back to prehistoric religions such as those of the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation. Hinduism has thus been called the "oldest religion" in the world. Scholars regard Hinduism as a synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no single founder. This Hindu synthesis emerged after the Vedic period, between c. 500 and 200 BCE and c. 300 CE, in or after the period of the Second Urbanisation, and during the early classical period of Hinduism. It flourished in the medieval period, with the decline of Buddhism in India.
Indian Indonesians are Indonesians whose ancestors originally came from the Indian subcontinent. Therefore, this term can be regarded as a blanket term for not only Indonesian Indian proper, but also Indonesians with other South Asian ancestry. According to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, there were about 120,000 people of Indian origin as well as 9,000 Indian nationals living and working in Indonesia as of January 2012. Most of them were concentrated in province of North Sumatra and urban areas such as Banda Aceh, Surabaya, Medan and Jakarta. However, it is quite impossible to get correct statistical figures on the Indian Indonesian population, because some of them have merged and assimilated with the indigenous population to become indistinguishable from native Indonesians.
Hinduism is the largest religion in India. According to the 2011 Census of India, 966.3 million people identify as Hindu, representing 79.8% of the country's population. India contains 94% of the global Hindu population. The Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of four of the world's major religions: namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—collectively known as Indian religions that believe Moksha is the most supreme state of the Ātman (soul). The vast majority of Indian Hindus belong to Shaivite and Vaishnavite denominations. India is one of the three countries in the world where Hinduism is the dominant religion.
Asia is the largest and most populous continent and the birthplace of many religions including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism and Zoroastrianism. All major religious traditions are practiced in the region and new forms are constantly emerging. Asia is noted for its diversity of culture.
Several different religions are practised in Indonesia. Indonesia is officially a presidential republic and a unitary state without an established state religion. Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population and the first principle of Indonesia's philosophical foundation, Pancasila, requires its citizens to state the belief in "the one and almighty God". Although, as explained by the Constitutional Court, this first sila of Pancasila is an explicit recognition of divine substances and meant as a principle on how to live together in a religiously diverse society. However, blasphemy is a punishable offence and the Indonesian government has a discriminatory attitude towards its numerous tribal religions, atheist and agnostic citizens. In addition, the Aceh province officially applies Sharia law and is notorious for its discriminatory practices towards religious and sexual minorities. There are also Islamic fundamentalist movements in several parts of the country with overwhelming Muslim majorities.
Indian people are the citizens and nationals of the Republic of India. In 2022, the population of India stood at 1.4 billion people. According to UN forecasts, India overtook China as the world's most populous country by the end of April 2023, containing 17.50 percent of the global population. In addition to the Indian population, the Indian overseas diaspora also boasts large numbers, particularly in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf and the Western world.
Growth of religion involves the spread of individual religions and the increase in the numbers of religious adherents around the world. In sociology, desecularization is the proliferation or growth of religion, most commonly after a period of previous secularization. Statistics commonly measure the absolute number of adherents, the percentage of the absolute growth per-year, and the growth of converts in the world.
Religion in India is characterised by a diversity of religious beliefs and practices. Throughout India's history, religion has been an important part of the country's culture and the Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of four of the world's major religions, namely, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, which are collectively known as native Indian Religions or Dharmic Religions and represent around 83% of the total population of India.
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethnic-cultural terms. As commonly conceptualized, the modern states of South Asia include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. South Asia borders East Asia to the northeast, Central Asia to the northwest, West Asia to the west and Southeast Asia to the east. Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian subcontinent and is bounded by the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Pamir Mountains in the north.
Hinduism is the largest religion in South Asia with about 1.2 billion Hindus, forming just under two-thirds of South Asia's population. South Asia has the largest population of Hindus in the world, with about 99% of all global Hindus being from South Asia. Hinduism is the dominant religion in India and Nepal and is the second-largest religion in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan.
