Encounter with a Hindu preacher

[Angrboda]

It does indeed sound like a Krishna. The tactic of giving you a book or a flower is rooted in marketing psychology. It's known that when people are given something, a gift, regardless of relative value, the person will feel compelled to reciprocate the gesture, which is the point at which they suggest a donation. It's found that even a relatively worthless gift — a flower, or the little Buddhist prayer trivets that I keep receiving in the mail — will increase both the frequency of donations and the magnitude.

Hinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent, and one of its indigenous religions. Hinduism includes Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Śrauta among numerous other traditions. It also includes historical groups, for example the Kapalikas. Among other practices and philosophies, Hinduism includes a wide spectrum of laws and prescriptions of "daily morality" based on the notion of karma, dharma, and societal norms. Hinduism is a conglomeration of distinct intellectual or philosophical points of view, rather than a rigid common set of beliefs.

Hinduism is formed of diverse traditions and has no single founder. Among its direct roots is the historical Vedic religion of Iron Age India and, as such, Hinduism is often called the "oldest living religion" or the "oldest living major religion" in the world.

Hinduism as it is commonly known can be subdivided into a number of major currents. Of the historical division into six darsanas, only two schools, Vedanta and Yoga, survive. The main divisions of Hinduism today are Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Smartism and Shaktism. Hinduism also recognizes numerous divine beings subordinate to the Supreme Being or regards them as lower manifestations of it. Other notable characteristics include a belief in reincarnation and karma, as well as in personal duty, or dharma.

McDaniel (2007) distinguishes six generic "types" of Hinduism, in an attempt to accommodate a variety of views on a rather complex subject:

• Folk Hinduism, as based on local traditions and cults of local deities at a communal level and spanning back to prehistoric times or at least prior to written Vedas.
  
• Śrauta or "Vedic" Hinduism as practiced by traditionalist brahmins (Śrautins).
  
• Vedantic Hinduism, for example Advaita Vedanta (Smartism), as based on the philosophical approach of the Upanishads.
  
• Yogic Hinduism, especially that based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
  
• "Dharmic" Hinduism or "daily morality", based on the notion of Karma, and upon societal norms such as Vivāha (Hindu marriage customs).
  
• Bhakti or devotionalist practices
  

[I'm not sure where my tradition, Shaktism, fits in this list, if at all. There are Bhakti traditions, known as Dakshinamargis Shaktism or the right-handed path, but also Tantric and related Shakta traditions, known as Vamamargis Shaktism or the left-handed path. — apophenia]

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Hinduism does not have a "unified system of belief encoded in declaration of faith or a creed", but is rather an umbrella term comprising the plurality of religious phenomena originating and based on the Vedic traditions.

The characteristic of comprehensive tolerance to differences in belief, and Hinduism's openness, makes it difficult to define as a religion according to traditional Western conceptions. To its adherents, Hinduism is the traditional way of life, and because of the wide range of traditions and ideas incorporated within or covered by it, arriving at a comprehensive definition of the term is problematic. While sometimes referred to as a religion, Hinduism is more often defined as a religious tradition. It is therefore described as both the oldest of the world's religions, and the most diverse. Most Hindu traditions revere a body of religious or sacred literature, the Vedas, although there are exceptions. Some Hindu religious traditions regard particular rituals as essential for salvation, but a variety of views on this co-exist. Some Hindu philosophies postulate a theistic ontology of creation, of sustenance, and of destruction of the universe, yet some Hindus are atheists. Hinduism is sometimes characterized by the belief in reincarnation (samsara), determined by the law of karma, and the idea that salvation is freedom from this cycle of repeated birth and death. However, other religions of the region, such as Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, also believe in karma, outside the scope of Hinduism. Hinduism is therefore viewed as the most complex of all of the living, historical world religions. Despite its complexity, Hinduism is not only one of the numerically largest faiths, but is also the oldest living major tradition on earth, with roots reaching back into prehistory.