India, the Land of Religion and Spirituality

The universal spirit of Hinduism is manifest in India, which contains more religions than all the rest of the world put together. All the religions of the world are present in India but in no other country. Besides the many branches of Hinduism, India contains the Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists, which originated from the country. India has become the land of refuge for many religious groups.

It contains the last remaining Parsees, representatives of the ancient Zoroastrian religion of Persia, which itself is very similar in language and deities to the ancient Vedic religion of India. There is an ancient Jewish tradition in India going back to pre-Christian eras and a Syrian Christian tradition going back to the fourth century.

Surprisingly, there is a greater diversity of Islamic groups in India than in any Islamic country in the world, which includes Sunnis, Shias, Ahmadiyas, Ismaelis, Bohris, and Sufis, a number of which, as unorthodox Muslims, are banned in orthodox Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

The largest Bahai temple in the world is in Delhi and the Theosophists have perhaps their largest following in India. The acceptance of such diversity is explicable only through the open tradition of Hinduism, as non-Hindu countries do not have such diversity of religious practices or groups.

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