There are several figures - like Krishna and Rama, the avatars of Vishnu, or Shankaracharya, the great teacher of Advaita Vedanta - who are of particular importance in Hinduism but none that dominate it so exclusively as Christ, Mohammed or Buddha dominate their religions. Each region of India has its important saints and sages of the last few centuries like Tulsi Das and Kabir in the north, Narsi Mehta and Mira Bai in Gujarat, Nanak for Sind and Punjab, Jnaneshvara and Tukaram of Maharashtra.

Hinduism has many new sects, and does not limit itself merely to the teachers of the past. The Swami Narayan movement starting in Gujarat in the late eighteenth century, the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda movement starting from Bengal in the late nineteenth century, the Arya Samaj movement founded by Swami Dayananda Sarasvati in north India in the mid-nineteenth century, are only a few of such groups which now have wide followings of their own.

Many modern Hindu teachers have become known in the modern world like Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Gandhi, Aurobindo, Ramana Maharshi, Shivananda and countless more. Yet they are not known as mere propagators of Hinduism but as world teachers, proponents of Yoga, meditation, and universal spiritual principles. Such spiritual teachers see themselves as part of a universal tradition, not the proponents of a particular religion against others. This is no mere accident. It is part of the universal formulation of Hinduism which is not closed along particular lines.

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