What are some mind-blowing facts about Hinduism?

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Lives in India (1998–present) Updated 3y

What are some mind-blowing facts about Hinduism?

1. Hinduism is the world's 3rd largest religion closely following Christianity and Islam. However, unlike the top 2 religions, 95% of Hindus live in a single nation!
2. If you ask a religious Hindu, when did Krishna or Rama live - they will give an answer like 50 million years ago or some other random big number. Actually, it doesn't matter. Because Hindus believe in a circular time (rather than the linear time concept in the Western world).
3. Each of our time cycles has 4 main periods - the Satya yuga (golden age of innocence), Tretha Yuga, Dwapara yuga and Kali Yuga. In the last stage, people get so filthy that whole thing is cleaned up and the cycle starts all over again.
4. Hinduism is the oldest of the major extant religions. Its fundamental book - Rig Veda was written over 3800 years ago.
5. Rig Veda was orally passed for hundreds of years in parallel. And yet, its current form has no major discrepancies. It is indeed a stupendous achievement that a major body of work can be orally passed between people in such a large nation with no loss in quality/content.
6. Unlike other major religions, Hinduism doesn't consider the pursuit of wealth as a sin. In fact, we celebrate wealth in the form of many gods such as Lakshmi, Kubera and Vishnu. Hinduism has a 4 level hierarchy - Kama (pursuit of pleasures including sexual/sensual) - Artha (pursuit of livelihood , wealth and power), Dharma (pursuit of philosophy, religion and doing duties to society) and Moksha (liberation) and we progress from the top to bottom.
7. This is very close to Maslow's hierarchy and thus Hindus are natural capitalists. Hinduism is the parent religion for 2 of the other major religions of South Asia - Buddhism and Sikhism. It is also closely associated with its sister religion - Jainism.
8. The holiest number for Hindus is 108. This is the ratio of Sun's distance (from earth)/Sun's diameter or Moon's distance (from earth)/Moon's diameter. Thus, most of our prayer beads have 108 beads
9. Beyond India, Hinduism is the dominant religion of many exotic regions such as Nepal, Mauritius, Bali, second biggest religion of Fiji & Sri Lanka and at one point covered most of Southeast Asia - including Indonesia, Cambodia and Malaysia. It is also practised in South American countries like Guyana and Suriname.
10. The Hindu epic of Mahabharatha - that is often used to teach the principles of Hinduism - is written in 1.8 million words long poem (10X the combined length of the Illiad and Odyssey)
11. Unlike all other major religions, we don't have a founder or a prophet (like Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Mohammad or Buddha). According to Hindus, the religion has no origin (again coming back to the circular concept).
12. Unlike the popular Western conception, Yoga in Hinduism is not merely an exercise routine. It is one of the founding blocks of the religion.
13. The 4 most holiest animals for Hindus are the cow, elephant, snake and peacock (India's national bird and a wagon of many Hindu gods) - 4 main animals of India.
14. The largest religious structures in the world - Ankor Vat in Cambodia were built by the Hindu kings of South East Asia.