The Hindu Religious Tradition: A New Historical, Anthropological, and Philological Approach

The Hindu Religious Tradition by Thomas J. Hopkins, originally published in 1971, provided a comprehensive survey of Hindu development from the Indus civilization to the present.This new edition incorporates up-to-date scholarship to provide a more complete history of India’s cultural and religious development, and is an invaluable resource for students in need of an introduction to the history and practice of Hinduism. In addition to textual analysis, this book offers a new approach to the study of Hinduism that reconstructs the history of India through an examination of scientific research on geography, archaeology, genetics, art history, linguistic and inscriptions, bringing to awareness the ways that patterns of cultural development, migration, kingship, and technology impacted the synthesis and integration of a wide range beliefs and practices into what we call Hinduism today.Extending beyond the borders of present-day India, The Hindu Religious Tradition shows how Hinduism was in