The Epic and Puranic Period
How classical Hinduism took shape between about 500 BCE and 500 CE and beyond: the epics, the rise of Vishnu, Shiva and the Goddess, the Gupta age, the first temples and Hinduism's spread across Southeast Asia.
Between roughly 500 BCE and 500 CE, and continuing in the centuries after, Hinduism took on much of the form it has today. The great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, were composed; the gods Vishnu and Shiva and the Goddess rose to supremacy; temple worship and devotion (bhakti) developed; and the law books and philosophical schools were established. Historians often call this the era of “classical Hinduism”.
A changing religious world
The period began in an age of new ideas. Buddhism and Jainism challenged Vedic sacrifice and the authority of Brahmins, and the emperor Ashoka (reigned around 268–232 BCE), of the Maurya dynasty, became a great patron of Buddhism. In response, the Brahmanical tradition adapted: it absorbed popular deities and devotional practices, embraced the ideals of non-violence and renunciation, and set out its vision of social order in the Dharmashastras.
The epics
The Mahabharata and Ramayana grew over centuries of oral composition. Through their stories they explored dharma in all its complexity and presented heroes who were also gods. The Bhagavad Gita, part of the Mahabharata, brought together the paths of knowledge, action and devotion and presented Krishna as the Supreme God.
The rise of devotion
Devotion to personal gods grew steadily. One of the earliest pieces of evidence is the Heliodorus pillar at Vidisha in central India, erected around 113 BCE by Heliodorus, a Greek ambassador from the Indo-Greek kingdom, who describes himself as a devotee (bhagavata) of Vasudeva, a name of Krishna. By the early centuries CE, Vaishnava, Shaiva and Goddess traditions were flourishing, and the doctrine of Vishnu's avatars had developed.
The Gupta age
The Gupta empire (around 320–550 CE), which ruled much of northern India, is often called a classical or “golden” age. Gupta kings patronised Vishnu, Sanskrit literature and learning. This was the age of the poet and playwright Kalidasa, of major advances in mathematics and astronomy, and of the composition or compilation of many of the Puranas, which became the great storehouses of Hindu mythology.
The first temples
Early Hindu worship took place mainly in the open, at home or at simple shrines. In the Gupta period, the first surviving stone temples were built, such as the small temple at Sanchi (around the early 5th century) and the Dashavatara temple at Deogarh (around the 6th century), decorated with scenes of Vishnu. Over the following centuries, temples became grand centres of worship, art, learning and economic life. See The Hindu temple.
Philosophy and Tantra
The root texts of the six schools of philosophy (darshanas) were compiled in this period, including the Yoga Sutras and the Brahma Sutras. From around the 5th century CE, the Agamas and Tantras began to set out new forms of ritual, temple worship and meditation.
Hinduism across Southeast Asia
Through trade and cultural exchange, Hindu ideas, gods and the Sanskrit language spread to Southeast Asia from the early centuries CE. Kingdoms in present-day Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia adopted Hindu and Buddhist traditions. This culture produced great monuments such as the 9th-century Prambanan temple in Java and, later, Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Hinduism survives today as the majority religion of the Indonesian island of Bali.
Sources and further reading
- Romila Thapar, Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 (Allen Lane, 2002).
- Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (Cambridge University Press, 1996), chapters 3–5.
- Alf Hiltebeitel, Dharma: Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Narrative (Oxford University Press, 2011).