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6. MONOTHEISM & REINCARNATION
"The Vedas happened to be the first written documents in the world introducing the concept of a monotheistic religion, describing an absolute transcendental God, and the existence of individual spirit souls incarnating in human bodies, celestial bodies, in demigods, animals, plants and minerals. This is the reason why to human beings the injunction has been given to abstain from eating meat. Seen from the spiritual perspective, meat eating is a form of primitive cannibalism
The Vedic brahminical civilization attained its peak between 2,500-1,700 BC. The decline set in, when the masses became affected by their lower instincts and bad habits. They started to eat meat, which propelled Lord Buddha to descend on the earth in order to teach "ahimsa", non-violence, in all respects. Animal slaughter and meat eating result in forgetfulness of the soul's eternal relationship with the Lord. According to Srimad Bhagavatam, Lord Buddha is an incarnation of Bhagavan Sri Vishnu, who is an expansion of Bhagavan Sri Krishna.
Gradually, the common man fell into disgrace, forgetting his relationship with the Lord Supreme, Sri Krishna. He continued to eat meat and started to worship a variety of relative demigods, such as Durga, Siva, Sakti, Kali, Hanuman, Ganesa, etcetera, etcetera. His purpose was no longer to attain the Lord, but to collect material boons, such as a nice house, a beautiful wife, an obedient son, and cash. In this way, materialistic polytheism became the mainstream practice in India, called Hinduism.
Pure devotees (bhaktas) of Bhagavan and Vedic scriptures, on the contrary, worship Sri Krishna exclusively and pay their respects to the demigods as His servants. These are the basic differences between recent Hinduism and ancient Vaishnavism (worship of Vishnu, or Krishna)."
The History of Hinduism by Indira Dasi http://www.helium.com/tm/123437/hindu-derived-river-sindu
Development of Theory of Karma and Reincarnation
In the oldest written form of scriptures of Egypt found in the Book of the Dead, and we see no trace of reincarnation in it. Instead, we have the concept of a life after death, which is determined entirely
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| SR No. | 007303 |
| Book Title | Development of Hinduism |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | M M Ninan |
| Publisher | M M Ninan |
| Publication Year | |
| Total Pages | 582 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 45 MB |