The word Hindu is
derived from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, the historic local appellation for the
Indus River in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. It is world’s
oldest religion. It consists of "thousands of different religious groups that
have evolved in India since 1500 BCE. Most forms of Hinduism are henotheistic(
the worship of one god without denying the existence of other gods) religions.
Hinduism has grown to become the world's third largest religion, after
Christianity and Islam. It claims about 950 million followers -- about 14% of
the world's population. 2 It is the dominant religion in India, Nepal, and
among the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Estimates of the
number of Hindus in the U.S vary greatly:
- Our estimate,
for mid-2010, is 1.5 million.
- According to
the "Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches," there
were about 1.1 million Hindus in the U.S. during 1999.
- The "American
Religious Identification Survey" is believed to under-estimate
the numbers of Hindus because of communications problems with non-English
speaking households. They
estimated: 766,000 Hindus in 2001 and 1.2 million in 2008.
