Buddha Heaven: Indian Religious Civilization - Religion and Civilization

Author: Ou Dongming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-04-01
Features: India is one of the four great ancient civilizations, alongside Egypt, Babylon, and China. Linguistically, India belongs to the Indo-European language family, and geographically, it represents the great civilization of the East, much like China. However, Indian civilization is neither Western-style nor extremely different from Chinese civilization. Additionally, although India has long been subjected to invasions and rule by foreign nations throughout history, its mainstream culture has remained largely uninterrupted to this day. Its ancient and simple beliefs and moral traditions continue to powerfully guide the lives of the majority of its people. On a global scale, the uniqueness of Indian civilization is highly prominent. This book introduces the basic overview of Indian religions while also focusing on revealing the basic features of its spiritual civilization from the perspective of its connection with religion. Considering that in India, Hinduism and Buddhism are not only the religions that have had the most significant impact on its civilization historically but are also the most Indian religions, with Hinduism holding a dominant position in the religious and cultural landscape of India, this book will dedicate most of its content to discussing these two major religions and the civilizations associated with them. Since India's understanding of Hinduism is still relatively limited in our country, this book also emphasizes providing a more extensive introduction to it.