Talk:Brahmanism

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BIG mistake[edit]

Guys, a BIG mistake here. Brahmanism and Brahminism are two different words. You are making the classic mistake of confusing Brahman with Brahmin CaptainRon (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:34, 24 July 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Actually, the article Brahman is labled incorrectly, it should be labled Brahma (ब्रह्म) instead of brahman (ब्रह्मन्).--Ne0 (talk) 23:23, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't labeling people by Brahmanism breed ASPD? Known 19:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of Brahmins in India ever being compared to Jews in USA - Hemanshu 18:08, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

You may want to check Jews as a chosen people and Chosen people. Known 19:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Now, I've rephrased the contents; hope, this is ok Rrjanbiah 06:05, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I cannot imagine that non-whites (jews or, for that sake, negros) have the same social status in the USA as Brahmins have in India. Kristos

Some thoughts on brahminism[edit]

Brahminism is probably the last of the caste based occupations to still exist in all parts of India. In rural areas unfortunately the practice still continues. A barbers son will eventually become a barber and a brahmins son will be a brahmin. But the situation has changed tremendously even in the rural areas in the past 2 centuries. People are leaving villages to go to the towns. In the giant melting pot of towns like Mumbai (Bombay) all the distinctions just vanish.

08:45 am. Crowded local train - direction CST (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus formerly known as Victoria Terminus). Easily carrying more than 1000 souls. There is barely enough place to stand. One has to get to the office in time. Trying to guess the caste of the person next to you is the last thing on your mind.

Brahminism is practiced in the privacy of ones home. The feeling of misplaced superiority a century ago has been replaced by a quiet humility. Brahmin fathers tell their sons and daughters - "The only way for a Brahmin to get a good life in these days is to concentrate on education. Make sure you study hard to make the tough life a little bit easier"

One interesting phenomenon I would like to mention here is about a small village called Trimbakeshwar(Near the big town Nasik, some 200 Km from Mumbai). Brahmins there have established themselves as authorities on certain rituals that can be performed only by the brahmins of that village. These rituals are designed on the centuries old vedic rituals and are supposed to cancel out the evil effect of stars and planets in your horoscope. It is also said to have deeper meanings related to the deaths of your ancestors. One can see people from all over India (and in rare cases, abroad) flocking in hundreds and thousands to this ancient village and paying these brahmins some fees to get these rituals done and hope for a better life.

The thought of moving the arcitle about Brahminism to Hinduism is as good as moving the description of a pillar to that of house just becaue you think house potrays a bigger picture and thus its pillar can be described as houses' part itself.

No doubt that Bhrahminism is included in hinduism ,its is one of the strongest pillar but then it has its own meaning and speciality.

Thoughts of person above this comments are right ,today Brahminism is declinig in the storm of modernism and as brahmins have never been good traders ,businessmen their best bet is to find bread and butter for life via the thing that they have been doing fro generations , learning. Sadly today no one is there to support their simple way of life "biksha". It was the generous donatiosn of the students they used to teach and offering of their disciples which used to give them the resources to support their life for which they have to do a kind of business now..study and get it yor self. This is a capitalistic idea , to cash on something you know , the old vedic system was different. It believed in giving more then cashing on to what you know.

Talking like this I feel too idealistic,to confess the truth I am also one of those sham,cashing on what I know..working for a company. But some day I hope I have enough of the resources and knowledge that I could revert to the old ways to give little hope to the dying ways.

Please keep the two articles seprate , as they have different meanings.

Brahmanism and Hinduism are distinct - though Brahminism could be seen as an aspect of Hinduism, they are separate. If one were to roll everything into Hinduism like this, you'd have an inconceivable mess. The reason Brahminism is separate within the Hindu religion is for the very same reason. A purely Western perspective may not comprehend this, which is good - but that does not mean that an Eastern way of thought has to be forced to comply with the Western perspective. The English left India a while back. :-)

Further, adding Brahminism to Hinduism could give the false perception that they are one and the same. This is not true.

The two articles should be kept separate. --TaranRampersad 23:31, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Section on Buddha[edit]

The Buddha section either needs more after it, or it needs to be deleted. The way it stands now, it sounds to me like "First there was Vedic Brahminism. Then Buddha appeared. And Vedic Brahminism was no more", which is hardly the case. For instance, Adi Shankara was a strong influence in the opposite direction. Hinduism and Buddhism in India have undergone several cycles from about 500 BC to about 800 AD. We also need stuff in there about decline of Brahminism in the 20th century (refer Dravida movement, Mandal Commission etc). I'll see what I can do over the next few days.--Brhaspati 07:52, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)

I agree with you very much about what needs added, but would discourage you from deleting. Rather I'd much prefer if you would be willing to fill in the empty spaces. The information I added was almost entirely from the 1911 britannica, and it should be no suprise that it was lacking in contemporary detail. Mention of Budhism is important, since it was a signifigant challenge to Hinduism, and especially the Brahmins, but I agree that british colonialism, Hindu Nationalism, and Hindu religious and social reforms need a great deal more emphasis and content. Thank you for your kind assistance. Cheers, Sam_Spade (talk · contribs) 15:05, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

omnipresence[edit]

I'd like to see some of the data from omnipresence added to this page. This discusses the history but none of the tenets and beliefs. Avriette 01:11, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(I moved the above here from Talk:Brahmanism)

Page move requested[edit]

I requested this page be moved to Brahmanism. See Wikipedia:Requested_moves#29_April_2005.

Sam Spade 10:10, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please vote support or oppose below, with an optional one sentence explanation, and sign and date (~~~~). Lachatdelarue (talk) 13:30, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I strongly disagree w any such voting. Voting is anti-wiki. Do you oppose the page move, or what? Sam Spade 13:35, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. The move tag said Brahminism but WP:RM and above say Brahmanism, so I went for the latter (it appears more common according to Google) - if this was incorrect then just let me know and I'll sort it. Basically what's happened is the histories of this and Brahmin have been swapped and I've made a very simple base article at the other location ready for expansion. violet/riga (t) 17:59, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Further, by all means the other article can be turned into a simple redirect to here, but then the double-redirects need fixing. violet/riga (t) 18:01, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Merge?[edit]

this obviously has to be merged with Hinduism: The topic is exactly the same, and "Brahminism" is just the 1911 (i.e. outdated) term for it. No pov forks. dab (ᛏ) 17:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This earlier version of the page had different definitions. — goethean ॐ 19:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
um, well, in that case it should be merged with Brahmin. Come on, why should an article entitled "Brahmanism" start out with a definition of "Brahmin"? The "proto-Hinduism" bit seems pov. Who said that? This should go on History of Hinduism, and if a section entitled "Brahminism" is accepted there, this article can be branched out again. The article seems to assume that Vedic religion was "mystic", and that the caste system came later? Or that Brahminism is a "sacerdotalist" current of Hinduism? In either case, the term would have to be mentioned on Hinduism, History of Hinduism and Vedic religion. As it is, this is just a hidden-away pov fork. dab (ᛏ) 14:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's definitely a weird article. If you look at the history, it has been moved once and transformed several times. I don't have big problems with a merge; I just wanted to make you aware of the article's history. I think I'll alert Sam Spade of the merge so that there's no issues. — goethean ॐ 15:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Or not. It's looks like he's got bigger fish to fry. — goethean ॐ 19:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
nothing links few articles link here (this is why nobody over at Hinduism was even aware of this article; although I just found Talk:Hinduism/archive3#Ancient_Indian_religion_and_Hinduism). I'm not going to do the merge myself, but I insist we keep the article tagged as a pov fork until somebody does merge it. "Proto-Hinduism" is discussed at Vedic religion, but of course it is a matter of pov (or just terminology, really) whether Vedic religion itself is to be included in Hinduism, so it is either a precursor or an early form. dab (ᛏ) 10:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Whats going on here in this article? This is a weird propaganda article projecting some verses completely out of original meaning. Wikipedia is not for Propaganda. Most of it's contents are misconceptions and lies. This article needs to be merged but Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) was never Brahminism...then what to do with this propaganda material?.--Holy Ganga 22:33, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you should merge some of it into History of Hinduism. --Dangerous-Boy 06:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Brahminism and hinduism are two different issues. hinduism is a divine intety and brahminism is a path to reach the almighty through the different doctrines prescribed by the vedas I am totally against the idia of moving this article and merging it with hinduism

Brahmanism and Hinduism are distinct - though Brahminism could be seen as an aspect of Hinduism, they are separate. If one were to roll everything into Hinduism like this, you'd have an inconceivable mess. The reason Brahminism is separate within the Hindu religion is for the very same reason. A purely Western perspective may not comprehend this, which is good - but that does not mean that an Eastern way of thought has to be forced to comply with the Western perspective. The English left India a while back. :-)

Further, adding Brahminism to Hinduism could give the false perception that they are one and the same. This is not true.

The two articles should be kept separate. When you talk about POV forks, perhaps you should consider POV integration. Look to thine self. Remove the tag and be done with it, there are bigger issues to deal with. --TaranRampersad 23:34, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article should absolutely not be merged w Hinduism. Some feel Hinduism is a modern religion built upon older religions, of which brahmanism would be among the earliest. Even if one disagrees, brahmanism was still distinctly different from hinduism today. Sam Spade 01:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Sam. There are a lot of different views on the history, and fortunately we don't have to discuss those... we'd lose our minds. :-) My POV is that Brahmanism itself laid an indirect foundation for Buddhism, where some Hindus believe that the last Buddha was an incarnation of Lord Vishnu...the 9th, I believe. But history is much more complicated... :-)
I support the merger of Brahmanism with Hinduism and other relevant articles. Brahmanism is the same as Hinduism just as Sanatan Dharma is. It is more or less likely a pejorative term used by Anti-Hindus. I have nominated this for deletion. Babub 16:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Propaganda piece[edit]

This article reads like a typical Marxist propaganda piece about Hinduism. Especially, the sections about "Brahmin supremacy" and "Challenges to Brahmin supremacy" awfully POV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.22.3.206 (talk • contribs)

Yes, looks somewhat like coming from the annals of CPI-M to me too. It also contains plenty of jokes, like vegetarianism in Hinduism is only 4 - 5 centuries old. deeptrivia (talk) 04:51, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CPI-M. Nice. The article is improved now.Bakaman Bakatalk 22:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Overhaul[edit]

Looking at this article and reading the discussion, my plan is to really overhaul this article.... and I will procede slowly- I would love other's input.

The main thing I am looking for is insight into how Brahmanism is different from Hinduism or Vedic Civilization. Sethie 00:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it? It might just be the communist term for Hinduism :) Just kidding. deeptrivia (talk) 00:40, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


) We'll get to the bottom of things! :) My first step is taking out excessive things about the Brahmin caste. My hunch is that as the article gets trimmed down, what we will find is that Brahmanism is more of a.... branch of Hinduism focusing on the ritual/Vedic/duties of the Brahmin caste thing... We'll see and again, I plan to go slowly....Sethie 00:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Total Community[edit]

I am born bramhin. I have gone through the article and would like to thank the gentlemans, who have collected such a good material, which is useful to collect for every bramhins. Many of us donot know whether the collected material is true, partial or prejudicely written. If we go to the history, there is no mention of any castism before the invasion of Alexander the great, Mughals and Britishers. Before these invasions, some foreign travelers came to India like Magasthenes, Whensong and others and lived here for a very long period. These travelers have written in their diary about the civilian sense of Indians communities and its hormony in between the different castes. There is no findings of any instance of the torture of the lower caste written by these travelers. HINDU word came from the Mughals because they came in India through HINDU-KUSH Mountains. In Pasto and other Arabic language the pronunceation of hindi "Sa" can be hindi "Ha" pronounced viceversa. The Mughals have to cross the Sindhu River to come to India. Those who are residing in the across Sindhu River is pronounced HINDU or SINDHU by the Mughals.

User:Dbbajpai1945@sify.com 10:00 PM IST, 02 July 2006

Complete overhaul[edit]

As suggested by dab and deeptrivia, I propose to do a complete overhaul of this article giving the history of usage of this term and its implications in the fields of philosophy, society and religion.--Babub | Talk 06:59, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did a complete overhaul. Much material belongs in History of Hinduism, Brahmin and Vedic religion.--Babub | Talk 09:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. It is completely wrong to state that this term is just a derogatory way to say "Hinduism". Much like "Mohammedanism", it is not derogatory by intention, but merely an exonym. Plus, it is by no means synonymous with "Hinduism", since it refers to the "Vedic" religion of the Brahmin caste, exclusively, and does not extend to the many forms of non-Brahmin folk religion. dab (𒁳) 10:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

disambiguation[edit]

Brahminism is clearly in current use as a term for a subset of Hinduism, and not an "obsolete synonym" of Hinduism. Thus, Oxford University offers the course "Hinduism I (Brahminism)" to theology students.[1] A synonym is "Brahminical Hinduism". dab (𒁳) 17:54, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Misleading[edit]

This article is absolutely misleading, full of errors and at best, a joke. Wikipedia is not a place to vent out personal thoughts on anything, however big or small it may be. On the contarary Wikipedia is supposed to provide authentic information. In a nutshell this article is nothing but a collection of rubbish done by some (probably mislead) Indian(s). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.202.124.224 (talk) 19:18, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Double articles?[edit]

We have Brahminism and these two look similar. Thus this less common term should be redirected to Brahminism. Capitals00 (talk) 06:23, 9 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No. The term "Brahminism" May have sever al menings, but the term "Brahmanism" commonly referendum refers to post-Vedic Brahman, pre-Hindu religion. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:11, 9 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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