Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma)

No one knows how old the religion of India might be, and the people of India do not care, for they call it Sanatana Dharma: the Eternal Religion. As thousands of years passed, an immense structure evolved around the matrix of Sanatana Dharma and today is popularly known as Hinduism.

Sanatana Dharma in its primal form is to be found in the Isha, Kena, Katha, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitaryeya, Chandogya, Brihadaranyaka, and Svetashvatara Upanishads. These eleven texts (upanishad means “teaching”–literally “that which was heard when sitting near”) are attached to the Vedas, the ancient hymns of the Indian sages, and also knows as Vedanta, the End of the Vedas. Long after their composition, the great author-philosopher Vyasa wrote the most popular sacred text of India, the Bhagavad Gita, which is a digest of the Upanishads, presenting in seven hundred verses the practical and theoretical teachings of Sanatana Dharma.

Some time before Vyasa, another master of the inner life named Patanjali wrote a brief text on meditation. Known as the Yoga Darshana or Yoga Sutras, it analyzes the meditational lore of the upanishads and presents it in a thoroughly practical form.