- Hindu Temple of St. Louis, Missouri
- Sri Guruvaayoorappan Temple in Morganville, New Jersey
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Hinduism is the fourth-largest religion in the United States, comprising 1% of the population, nearly the same as Buddhism and Islam. [1] The majority of American Hindus are immigrants, mainly from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Caribbean, with a minority from Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Canada, Africa, Europe, Oceania, and other countries.
The number of Hindus living in the United States did not grow substantially until the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. [5] Prior to 1965, fewer than 50,000 Hindus from India had immigrated to the United States. As a result of U.S. immigration policies in favor of educated and highly skilled migrants, [6] Hindu-Americans are the most likely to hold college degrees and earn high incomes of all religious communities in the United States.
Many concepts of Hinduism, such as meditation, karma, ayurveda, reincarnation, and yoga, have been adopted into mainstream American beliefs and lifestyles. [7] Om is a widely chanted mantra, particularly among millennials and those who practice yoga and subscribe to the New Age philosophy. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey of 2009, 24% of Americans believe in reincarnation, a core concept of Hinduism. [8] [9] The Hindu practices of vegetarianism and ahimsa are also becoming more widespread.
The Pew Research Center estimated that as of 2015, about 1.7 million adherents of Hinduism live in the United States. The Hindu population of the United States is the eighth-largest in the world. Ten percent of Asian Americans, who together account for 5.8% of the U.S. population, are followers of the Hindu faith. [10]
Most Hindus in America are immigrants (87%) or the children of immigrants (9%). The remaining are converts. [11] The majority of Hindus are immigrants from South Asia. There are also Hindus from the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Canada, Oceania, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. In the U.S. there are also about 900 ethnic Cham people from Vietnam, one of the few remaining non-Indic Hindus in the world, 55% of whom are Hindus. [12] In the 1990s, Buddhist Bhutan expelled most of its Hindu population, amounting to one-fifth of the country's population. [13] [14] As of February 2017 [update] , more than 92,000 exiled Bhutanese refugees have been resettled in the United States since 2008, the majority of whom are Hindu. [15] [16]
Many Afghan Hindus have also settled in United States, mainly after Soviet–Afghan War and the rise of the Taliban. [17] [18] A number of Hindu-Americans immigrated twice, first from former British colonies of East Africa, the Caribbean, Fiji to the United Kingdom, and then to the United States. [19]
According to the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, in 2017 Hindus were the largest minority religion in 92 of the 3143 counties in the US. [20]
Although Hinduism is practiced mainly by people of South Asian descent, a sizable number of Hindus in United States are converts to Hinduism. According to the Pew Research Center, 9% of Hindus in United States belong to a non-Asian ethnicity: White (4%), Black (2%), Latino (1%) and mixed (2%). [21] Converts to Hinduism include Hollywood actor Julia Roberts. [22] [23]
American Hindus have the highest rates of educational attainment and highest household income among all religious communities, and the lowest divorce rates. [24] In 2008, according to Pew Research Center, 80% of American adults who were raised as Hindus continued to adhere to Hinduism, which is the highest retention rate for any religion in America. [25]
Hindus have relatively high acceptance of homosexuality. In 2019, 71% of Hindus believe that homosexuality should be accepted, which is higher than the general public (62%). [21] About 68% of Hindus supported same-sex marriage, vs. 53% of the general public. [21] Hindus in the United States also support abortion (68%). About 69% of Hindus supported strict laws and regulations to protect the environment and nature. [21]
According to the Pew Research Center, only 15% of the Americans identified the Vedas as a Hindu religious text. Roughly half of Americans knew that yoga has roots in Hinduism. [26] [27]
According to a 2014 Pew Research survey, 88% of the American Hindu population believed in God (versus 89% of adults overall). However, only 26% believed that religion is very important in their life. About 51% of the Hindu population reported praying daily. [21]
Anandibai Joshi is believed to be the first Hindu woman to set foot on American soil, arriving in New York in June 1883 at the age of 19. She graduated with a medical degree from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in March 1886, becoming the first female of South Asian origin to graduate with a degree in Western medicine in the United States. Joshi returned to India in late 1886 but died within months of her return. [28]
Swami Vivekananda's address to the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 was one of the first major discussions of Hinduism in the United States. He spent two years lecturing in several U.S. cities, including Detroit, Boston, and New York. Starting in 1902, Swami Rama Tirtha spent two years speaking on the philosophy of Vedanta in the United States. [29] In 1920, Paramahansa Yogananda was India's delegate at the International Congress of Religious Liberals held in Boston. [30]
Although most of these immigrants were Punjabi Sikhs, they were incorrectly referred to as "Hindoo" by many Americans, as well as in some official immigration documents. [31]
During the 1960s, Hindu teachers found a receptive audience in the U.S. counter-culture, leading to the formation of a number of Neo-Hindu movements, such as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness founded by Swami Prabhupada. [32] People involved in the counter-culture such as Ram Dass, George Harrison, and Allen Ginsberg were influential in the spread of Hinduism in the United States.
Ram Dass was a Harvard professor known as Richard Alpert who traveled to India in 1967 and studied under Neem Karoli Baba. He returned the West as a Hindu teacher and changed his name to Ram Dass, which means servant of Rama (one of the Hindu gods). A student of Ram Dass, Jeffery Kagel, devoted his life to Hinduism in the sixties, and is now an American vocalist known for his performances of Hindu devotional music known as kirtan (chanting the names of God). He has released seventeen albums since 1996.
Beatles member George Harrison [33] became a devotee of Swami Prabhupada. Harrison started to record songs with the words "Hari Krishna" in the lyrics and was widely responsible for popularizing Hinduism in America in the 1960s and 1970s. His song, My Sweet Lord, became the biggest-selling single of 1971 in the United Kingdom. Allen Ginsberg, the author of Howl, was heavily involved with Hinduism in the 1960s and it was said that he chanted "Om" at The Human Be-in of 1967 for hours on end. Other influential Indians of Hindu faith in counter-culture movement are Mata Amritanandamayi, Chinmoy and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. [34]
Hindu Americans, as well as Hindu immigrants, have often adapted their practice and places of worship in accordance with the world around them. Many of the early Hindu emissaries to the United States drew on ideological confluences between Christian and Hindu universalism. [35] Hindu temples in the United States tend to house more than one deity corresponding with a different tradition, unlike those in India which tend to house deities from a single tradition. [36] Yoga become part of many American's lifestyle, but its meaning has shifted. While Hindus in the United States may refer to the practice as a form of meditation that has different forms (i.e. karma yoga, bhakti yoga, kriya yoga), it is used in reference to the physical aspect of the word. [37]
In September 2000, a joint session of Congress was opened with a prayer in Sanskrit (with some Hindi and English added), by Venkatachalapathi Samudrala to honor the visit of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The gesture was an initiative by Ohio Congressman Sherrod Brown, who requested the U.S. Congress House Chaplain to invite the Hindu priest from the Shiva Vishnu Hindu Temple in Parma, Ohio. [38] A Hindu prayer was read in the Senate on July 12, 2007, by Rajan Zed, a Hindu chaplain from Nevada. [39] His prayer was interrupted by a couple and their daughter who claimed to be Christian patriots, which prompted a criticism of candidates in the upcoming presidential election for not condemning the interruption. [40] In October 2009, President Barack Obama lit a ceremonial Diwali lamp at the White House to symbolize victory of light over darkness.
In April 2009, President Obama appointed Anju Bhargava, a management consultant and pioneer community builder, to serve as a member of his inaugural Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnership. In collaboration with the White House, Hindu American Seva Communities was formed to bring the Hindu seva voices to the forefront in the public arena and to bridge the gap between U.S. government and Hindu and Dharmic people and places of worship.
In 2021, the State of New Jersey joined with the World Hindu Council to declare October as Hindu Heritage Month. [41]
The Vedanta Society was responsible for building the earliest temples in the United States starting in 1905 with the Old Temple in San Francisco, [42] [43] [44] but they were not considered formal temples. [45] [ citation needed ] The earliest traditional Mandir in the United States is Shiva Kartikeya Temple in Concord, California. Built in 1957 and known as Palanisamy Temple, it is one of the few temples that is run by public elected members. [46] The Maha Vallabha Ganapathi Devastanam, owned by the Hindu Temple Society of North America in Flushing, New York, was consecrated on July 4, 1977. [47]
There are over 1450 Hindu temples across the United States, [48] with a majority on the East Coast. The New York region has more than 1135 temples; [49] Texas has 128 [50] and Massachusetts has 127. [51]
Other prominent temples include the Malibu Hindu Temple, built in 1981 in Calabasas, California, and owned and operated by the Hindu Temple Society of Southern California. In addition, Swaminarayan temples exist in almost 20 states.
The oldest Hindu Temple in Texas is the Shree Raseshwari Radha Rani temple at Radha Madhav Dham, Austin. [52] The temple, established by Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj, is one of the largest Hindu temple complexes in the Western Hemisphere, [53] and the largest in North America. [54] [55] [56]
In Tampa, South Florida, the Sri Vishnu Temple was consecrated in November 2001. [57]
Parashakthi Temple [58] in Pontiac, Michigan, is a tirtha peetham for Goddess "Shakthi," or the "Great Divine Mother" in Hinduism. The temple was envisioned in 1994 by Dr. G. Krishna Kumar in a deep meditative kundalini experience of "Adi Shakthi". [59]
Akshardham in Robbinsville, New Jersey, is one of the largest stone Hindu temples in the United States. [60]
In 2010, the Bharatiya Temple of Northwest Indiana temple was opened [61] next to the Indian American Cultural Center in Merrillville, Indiana. The Bharatiya Temple allows four different Hindu groups as well as a Jain group to worship together. [62]
The Sri Ganesha Temple of Alaska in Anchorage, Alaska, is the northernmost Hindu temple in the world. [63]
Tulsi Gabbard, who was born and raised in Hawaii and is of Samoan and European descent and the daughter of a Roman Catholic father and a Hindu mother, became in 2012 the first-ever Hindu to be elected to the U.S. Congress. She was also the first Hindu to seek a major party nomination for President in 2020. [64]
Usha Chilukuri Vance, wife of the junior United States Senator from Ohio, J. D. Vance, [65] who is Donald Trump's running mate in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Ami Bera (Amerish Babulal Bera) was elected to the Congress in 2012.Raja Krishnamoorthi, Pramila Jayapal and Ro Khanna (Rohit Khanna), all of Indian descent, were elected to Congress in In 2016. [66] Shri Thanedar was first elected to the Congress from Michigan in 2022.American Hindus are now the third-largest religious group in Congress, with five members. [67] (Among lawmakers declining to state their religious affiliations was Indian-American Pramila Jayapal, who was elected to the House of Representatives. Since her mother is a Hindu, the Hindu American Foundation suggests that Jayapal is also Hindu.) [68] From 2019 to 2022, Padma Kuppa, an Indian politician from Troy, Michigan, served in the Michigan House of Representatives. Swati Dandekar served first as an assemblywoman and later as a state senator in Iowa between 2003-2011. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy became the first Hindu to seek the Republican nomination for U.S. President in the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries.
In 2011, Army Captain Pratima Dharm became the first Hindu to serve as a U.S. military chaplain. [69]
Several organizations have been made to combat discrimination against Hindus in the United States and make changes in the political scene. Some of these organizations include:
In the 1923 case United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind , the Supreme Court ruled that Thind and other South Asians were not "free white persons" according to a 1790 federal law that stated that only white immigrants could apply for naturalized citizenship. [74] The Immigration Act of 1924 prohibited the immigration of Asians such as Middle Easterners and Indians. [75]
As a result of the Bellingham Riots in Bellingham, Washington, on September 5, 1907, some 125 Indians (mostly Sikhs but labelled as Hindus) were driven out of town by a mob of 400-500 white men. Some victims of the riots migrated to Everett, Washington, where they received similar treatment two months later. [76] Riots occurred during this period in Vancouver, BC, [77] and California. [78]
In January 2019, the Swaminarayan Temple in Kentucky was vandalized. Black paint was sprayed on the deity; the words "Jesus is the only God" and the Christian cross was spray painted on various walls. [79] [80] In February 2015, Hindu temples in Kent and the Seattle Metropolitan area were vandalized, and in April 2015, a Hindu temple in north Texas was vandalized with xenophobic images spray-painted on its walls. [81] [82] In 2011, the Sri Venkateshwara Temple in Pittsburgh was also vandalized and $15,000 worth of jewelry was stolen. [83]
In September 2022, a man named Sukhpal Singh, along with 4 others, destroyed a Gandhi statue outside a Hindu temple in Queens, New York. The perpetrators spray painted the statue with derogatory words and destroyed it with a sledgehammer. Singh was arrested and charged with a hate crime. [84]
In January 2023, the Shri Omkarnath Temple, located in Brazos Valley, Texas, was broken into by the burglars. A board member of temple, Srinivasa Sunkari, said, "There was a sense of invasion, that sense of loss of privacy when something like this happened to us." Hindu advocacy organizations like HinduPact and Hindu American Foundation demanded an investigation. [85]
In October 2023, burglars raided a Hindu mandir in Sacramento, California, with six suspects stealing a donation box from the premises. [86] The incident, which took place at the Hari Om Radha Krishna Mandir in the Parkway neighborhood of Sacramento, was condemned by the Coalition of Hindus of North America as a potential hate crime. [87] [88]
In January 2024, a Hindu temple in California was defaced with pro Khalistan graffiti. [89]
After a Hindu opening prayer was offered in the U.S. Congress by Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala, a priest of Shiva Hindu Temple in Parma, Ohio, [90] [91] [92] [93] the Family Research Council (FRC), a conservative Christian group, issued protests through conservative media. [92]
On July 12, 2007, Rajan Zed, a Hindu cleric, offered a prayer in the U.S. Senate as its guest chaplain. The proceedings were interrupted by three self-professed Christian protestors, who were arrested by Capitol Police and charged with a misdemeanor for disrupting Congress. [94] The conservative Christian group American Family Association objected to the prayer, [95] citing the loss of the "Judeo-Christian foundations" of the United States. [96]
In 2005, the Texas-based Vedic Foundation and the American Hindu Education Foundation filed a complaint to California's Curriculum Commission, arguing that the coverage of Indian history and Hinduism in 6th grade history textbooks was biased against Hinduism. [97] Points of contention included a textbook's portrayal of the caste system, the Indo-Aryan migration theory, and the status of women in Indian society. [98]
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Hinduism is an umbrella-term for a broad range of Indian religious and spiritual traditions (sampradayas) that are unified by the concept of dharma, a universal order maintained by its followers through rituals and righteous living. 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.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Hinduism:
According to the Book of Idols by the medieval Arab scholar Hisham ibn al-Kalbi, Hinduism was present in pre-Islamic Arabia. Ibn Al-Kalbi explains the origins of idol worshipping and the practice of circumambulation as rooted in India and Hinduism.
Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha is a Hindu denomination within the Swaminarayan Sampradaya. It was formed in 1905 by Shastri Yagnapurushdas following his conviction that Swaminarayan remained present on earth through a lineage of gurus starting with Gunatitanand Swami. As of August 2016, Mahant Swami Maharaj is the 6th guru and president of BAPS.
Hindus are the third largest Religious group in the United Arab Emirates and constitute around 6.6%-15% of the population in the nation. Hinduism is followed mainly by the significant Nepali and Indian population in the United Arab Emirates.
Hinduism is a minority religion in Japan mainly followed by the Indian, Sri Lankan and Nepali expatriate residents of Japan, who number about 166,550 people as of 2022. It's also widely integrated into the native Shinto-Buddhist religion which has had a significant impact on Japanese culture; Buddhism being an Indian religion is largely related to Hinduism, and most of its cultural practices are similar to those found in Hinduism.
Hinduism is the third-largest religious group in the United Kingdom, after Christianity and Islam; the religion is followed by over one million people representing around 1.6% of the total population. According to the 2021 United Kingdom census Hindus are primarily concentrated in England, particularly in Greater London and the South East, with just under 50,000 Hindus residing in the three other nations of the United Kingdom. Hindus have had a presence in the United Kingdom since the early 19th century, as at the time India was part of the British Empire. Many Indians in the British Indian Army settled in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Hinduism is a minority faith in Kenya, constituting 0.13% of the population of Kenya. Due to the efforts of the Hindu Council of Kenya, Kenya is one of only three African countries to recognise Hinduism as a religion. Hindus are free to practise their religion in Kenya, and several Kenyan cities have Hindu temples. The Hindu temples in Kenya are mostly of north and west Indian architectural style.
Mauritius is the only African Union country where Hinduism is the dominant religion, with about 50% of the population as followers in 2011. Hinduism is the second largest religion in Réunion (6.7%) and Seychelles (5.4%).
The earliest evidence of Hinduism in Tanzania is from the 1st millennium AD when there was trade between East Africa and Indian subcontinent. Most of these traders came from Gujarat, Deccan and the Chola empire. Archaeological evidence of small Hindu settlements have been found in Zanzibar and parts of Swahili coast, Zimbabwe and Madagascar.
The Swaminarayan Sampradaya, also known as Swaminarayan Hinduism and Swaminarayan movement, is a Hindu Vaishnava sampradaya rooted in Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita, characterized by the worship of its charismatic founder Sahajanand Swami, better known as Swaminarayan (1781–1830), as an avatar of Krishna or as the highest manifestation of Purushottam, the supreme God. According to the tradition's lore, both the religious group and Sahajanand Swami became known as Swaminarayan after the Swaminarayan mantra, which is a compound of two Sanskrit words, swami and Narayan.
Hinduism in England is the third largest religion in the country, with over 1,020,533 followers as of the 2021 census. This represents over 1.8% of the English population, up from 1.5% in 2011 and 1.1% in 2001. Hindus are predominantly in the cities of London and Leicester, where they make up greater proportions of the population. England has a number of Hindu temples, including the Hindu temple at Neasden which is a large Hindu temple in Europe. In 2007, the largest Hindu Mandir in the North of England, the Bradford Lakshmi Narayan Hindu Temple opened in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
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Hinduism in Los Angeles made its first significant impact in the late 19th century when wandering Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda, a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, came on his second visit to the United States. Swami Paramananda, a disciple of Swami Vivekananda, founded the Vedanta centres in Los Angeles and Boston.
BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham is a Hindu mandir (temple) built by the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha in Robbinsville, New Jersey, within Mercer County, in central New Jersey. It is the largest Hindu mandir in the United States and the second-largest in the world, the largest outside of Asia, and the largest Hindu mandir built in modern times, rising 213 ft (65 m) above ground. The mandir has a total of 13 shrines dedicated to various Hindu deities. The central shrine is dedicated to Swaminarayan and Gunatitanand Swami, worshiped together as Akshar Purushottam Maharaj.
The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Edison, New Jersey is a Hindu temple built by the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha, a Hindu denomination within the Swaminarayan Sampradaya. The first BAPS mandir built in Edison was consecrated by Pramukh Swami Maharaj in August 1996. In 2019, a new mandir was built on the same property and a re-inauguration ceremony was conducted by senior monastic disciples.
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