RELIGIONS IN WORLD.

India has been an important part of three major world religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, and
Islam. Buddhism began in India and spread to other places in Asia. Islam came into India
from West Asia. The origins of Hinduism are less clear, but are certainly related to the
arrival of the Indo-European Aryans from West Asia.

We don't know very much about the earliest Indian religion, of the Harappa people, but
certainly it was polytheistic. Based on the art of that time, some people think the later
Hindu gods were already being worshipped.

With the arrival of the Aryans about 1500 BC, the Indo-European gods entered India as well.
This was the beginning of modern Hinduism. Hinduism was (and is) polytheistic - Hindus
believe in many gods. Stories about these gods were written down in the Rig Veda and other
epic poems. In this kind of Hinduism, people believed in reincarnation - that people could
be reborn into other bodies after they died.