Hinduism
n. the name, invented by Europeans, for the religion of the majority of the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. Indians who are not followers of the distinct teachings of Islam, Jainism, or Sikhism are generally referred to as Hindus. In India, the religious complex of such people is called sanatana-dharma, “the eternal religion,” because it has incorporated all aspects of truth for many centuries. As a religion based on mythology, it has neither a founder nor a fixed canon. Myriad local cults and traditions of worship or belief can be distinguished. Common to all Hindus, however, is the teaching of the law of karma. The three most significant devotional movements in present-day Hinduism are Vaishnavism, devoted to the god Vishnu; Shaivism, devoted to the god Shiva; and Tantrism, or Shaktism, devoted to the goddess Shakti. Tantrism is of particular interest in psychology in that Shakti is the personification of the
fundamental creative force whose primary expression is the sexual energy that unites the polarity of male and female and brings forth new life.