Tao Te Ching

The Power of Goodness, the Wisdom Beyond Words
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Hindu ( सनातन धर्म ) Lineage

Possibly the world’s oldest religion going back to the Vedic period of 1500 BCE and today still the third largest with 15% of the global population and over 1 billion followers, Hinduism has complex, diverse roots and no purported founder. Though marred by an insistence on the caste system, suttee (sati), superstition, and religious fanaticism; its practical yoga teachings and techniques, emphasis on kindness, the family, patience, compassion, and liberation have proven for the most part to be a strong force for goodness through many centuries of human history.

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People (21)

Vyasa व्यास
c. 3000 BCE
Hindu immortals, Vishnu avatar, 5th incarnation of Brahma

(29 quotes)

“The one who classified the Vedas,” one of the seven Hindu immortals, and Vishnu avatar; Vyasa became author of the Mahabharata. Also credited with writing the eighteen major Purāṇas; he compiled, documented and categorized many ancient Indian texts that had been passed down through long oral traditions. The 10th Sikh guru, Gobind Singh described him as the 5th incarnation of Brahma and praised him for preserving the ancient Vedic knowledge.

Parshvanatha
872 – 772 BCE
Earliest historical Jain saint


23rd described and earliest historical Jain tirthankaras (savior/saint teachers), Parshvanatha—like the Buddha—was born to a king and queen but renounced the world’s fame and fortune in favor of a life dedicated to spiritual discovery. His realizations and teachings became not only a major influence on the Jain tradition; but also, Indian philosophy in general. The core of his teachings emphasized understanding the cause-and-effect principles of karma and samsara while practicing non-violence and asceticism. His statures usually have a serpent hood over his head or snakes sprouting out of his shoulders. According to Joseph Campbell, snakes in this context are a symbol for life and represent letting go of habitual patterns, beliefs, and prejudice like a snake discards its skin.

Yājñavalkya
fl. c. 7th century BCE
One of the earliest non-dual philosophers

(3 quotes)

Revered sage, major figure in the Upanishads, and one of the first philosophers in recorded history; no one could rival Yajnavalkya in debate. Called the greatest theologian of his time, and with his dialogues recorded in the Upanishads, he taught the great philosopher-king of Videha (modern day Nepal), Janaka who created an intellectual center for great sages that became the most important cultural and political center of South Asia. He described an “Absolute Self” and furthered a non-dual school of Hinduism that continues today. In later life he retired in a forest to become a wandering ascetic personifying a tradition popular through the centuries of Indian history.

Maitreyi
c. 7th century BCE
Symbol of enlightened feminine principle


A symbol for Indian intellectual women, "one of the most learned and virtuous women of ancient India,” poet, philosopher, and wife of the great sage, Yājñavalkya; Maitreyi studied, debated, taught metaphysics and wrote 10 hymns in the Rigveda, one of the four Hindu canonical sacred texts. Her dialog with Yājñavalkya in an Upanishad formed the foundation for Advaita, the oldest school of Vedanta that teaches and gives practices to help realize non-duality. In this dialog, her challenge to the male guru shows the equality of women in ancient India and inspires that realization today - a college in New Delhi is named after her.

Buddha गौतम बुद्ध (Siddhartha Shakyamuni Gautama)
563 – 483 BCE
Awakened Truth

(105 quotes)

While living at about the same time as Lao Tzu, the Buddha was more of a traditional teacher. His teachings, often called Buddha Dharma (“Awakened Truth”) extend and adapt to people in all walks of life: monks, householders, wandering yogis, kings and secular leaders of all kinds. Born into luxury and privilege, Siddhartha realized the meaninglessness of pleasure-seeking, fame, fortune, power and set off on a spiritual quest leading him to the deepest realization and insight. He cautioned against belief systems, herd instinct, and uncritically following leaders, philosophies, and religions.

Chandragupta Maurya
340 – 297 BCE
Ashoka’s grandfather, founder of the Maurya Empire

(13 quotes)

Born poor, orphaned, and abandoned; Chandragupta became founder of the Maurya Empire, a major change agent for Indian history, and builder of one of the subcontinent’s largest empires. After reaching the heights of power, fame, and wealth; he renounced everything and became a Jain monk. He unified India after Alexander the Great left a legacy of multiple territories ruled by Indo-Greek rulers; and, Ashoka’s grandfather, he began many of the economic and political reforms Ashoka later expanded and perfected. Under his rule, trade and agriculture flourished, infrastructure like roads, mines, and irrigation expanded, the economy grew very strong, and numerous religions spread. His renown continues into modern times through books, plays, television, movies, and even an Indian Postal Service stamp.

Adi Shankara
788 – 820 CE

(3 quotes)

Philosopher, theologian, and sage; Shankara unified and established the main philosophical trends in Hinduism. He criticized the dogmatic and ritually oriented schools, emphasized that enlightenment can be realized in this lifetime, and established monastic, personal-practice and direct-experience traditions. Writer of fundamental texts of the Vedanta school and responsible for a major Hindu revival, he is called the source of all the main currents of modern Indian thought. His teachings are similar to Mahayana Buddhism and he was called a "crypto-Buddhist" but he explained the difference being the Buddhism teaching of no self and his that the whole universe is the self - which may be a way of saying the same thing.

Jālandhara ཛཱ་ལནྡྷ་ར་པ། ("The Ḍākinī's Chosen One")
888 CE –
Mahasiddha #46

(3 quotes)

Jalandhara ཛཱ་ལནྡྷ་ར་པ།The Ḍākinī's Chosen One” (late 9th century)
Another wealthy and privileged brahmin who saw through the materialistic values of his culture and renounced it to search for a more meaningful life, Jalandhara left everything to live in a cremation ground meditating. Going on to become an important mother-tantra siddha, one of the nine naths, and guru to 10 of the 84 Mahasiddhas; he founded one of the two main nath lineages (A Hindu tradition favored by Kabir that blended Shaivism, Buddhism and Yoga traditions using Hatha Yoga to transform the physical into awakened perception of “absolute reality”), taught practices that unify the male and female forces, dissolve the subject/object dichotomy, and open the non-dual doors of perception. Mahasiddha #46

Kabīr कबीर
1399 – 1448 CE

(15 quotes)

Formidable iconoclast and deeply spiritual but anti-religious leader, a simple weaver but greatest poet of his time and place; Kabīr was born and raised as a Muslim, studied with a Hindu guru, became critical of both traditions, was physically threatened by both and after he died revered and claimed by both. From his background of a Muslim father and Hindu mother, he worked tirelessly to unite both traditions with a wisdom beyond their sectarian views. An important influence on Guru Nanak and the founding of Sikhism, his poetry and wisdom continue today in mainstream Indian film, folk songs, and even progressive rock.

Meera (Mirabai, Meera Bai )
1498 – 1546 CE
Inspiring poet, cultural freedom inspiration

(8 quotes)

Royal family princess, mystical poet, Bhakti movement saint; Meera’s deep devotion expressed in public dancing and singing aroused strong opposition, rejection, and assassination attempts from the Royal Family. Dedicated to a formless divinity, she wrote countless devotional poems called bhajans that became and remain popular on temples across India. Her devotion and courage inspired folk tales, legends, poets, and now popular literature, comic strips, and movies. Her life became a symbol for the common people’s suffering and inspirations for creating a better world as well as for women struggling in an environment trying to force them into role-based boxes. Also one of 16 Sikh bhakti saints, she became a symbol of freedom and following a personal path of inspiration rather than bowing to social, family, and political pressures of conformity.

Blavatsky, Helena Еле́на Петро́вна Блава́тская
1831 – 1891 CE
Co-founder of Theosophy

(23 quotes)

Mystic, medium, philosopher, co-founder of Theosophy; Blavatsky traveled widely and claimed to meet many “Masters of the Ancient Wisdom.” She studied and practiced in Tibetan monasteries, became one of the first Westerners to ever become a Buddhist, worked closely with Hindu reform movements, and criticized the spiritual materialism of the spiritualist traditions she became linked with. She worked hard to bridge religion to and with philosophy and science but the scientific community characterized her as “one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting imposters in history.” She wrote about ancient giants she believed made Stonehenge, the history of Atlantis, and many tenants of esoteric spiritualism. Her efforts became a major influence on the spread of Hinduism and Buddhism in the West as well as on Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy and the New Age Movement.

Ramakrishna
1836 – 1886 CE

(12 quotes)

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (Bengali: রামকৃষ্ণ পরমহংস (1836 – 1886)
Indian mystic, yogi, inspiration for the 19th–20th century Bengali Renaissance; Ramakrishna became a strong revitalizing influence on Indian culture. His "social service gospel,” disciples like Vivekananda, and organizations do major philanthropic work in education, health care, disaster relief, rural management, and in eliminating tribal welfare. Steeped in Hindu philosophy and practices, he also initiated into and practiced Islam and did the same with Christianity teaching ‘All religions as true.’ His impact on thought leaders extended from names like Gandhi and Nehru to westerner ones like Tolstoy, Dvorak, and Philip Glass.

Rabindranath Tagore
1861 – 1941 CE

(10 quotes)

Author, painter, “the greatest poet India has produced,” and song writer of over 2000 songs including the national anthems for India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka; Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. A universal internationalist, he was strongly against nationalism and introduced Indian culture to the West as well as Western culture to India. A close friend of Gandhi, he renounced his British knighthood and gave voice to the deeper wisdom within all strata of society: rich and poor, powerful and humble.

Swami Vivekananda ʃami bibekanɔnd̪o
1863 – 1902 CE
"The maker of modern India"

(22 quotes)

Patriotic saint and “maker of modern India,” main Ramakrishna disciple, introducer of Vedanta and Yoga into the Western world, important influence on the revival of Hinduism, and force for nationalism in colonial India; Vivekananda taught that all beings are part of a divine self and so serving mankind is the same as serving god. Teaching that all religions and sects within Hinduism are only different paths to the same goal, he saved Hinduism from the irrelevancy of only following antiquated traditions. Gandhi praised him for “cutting down the dead wood of tradition,” Rajaji crediting him for “saving Hinduism,” and Sri Aurobindo said that he “awakened India spiritually.” An inspiration for Aldous Huxley, Nikola Tesla, and Christopher Isherwood; he motivated the establishment of Indian science institutes and universities.

Ananda Coomaraswamy குமாரசுவாமி
1877 – 1947 CE
Perennial philosophy's Citizen of the World

(30 quotes)

Pioneering Tamil historian and philosopher, prolific author, geologist, metaphysician, and early translator of Indian culture into western terms; Coomaraswamy worked with Rabindranath Tagore, helped with the Indian struggle for independence, and provided an influential and cross-cultural view on becoming citizens of the world. Continually fighting against all forms of racism, he had to leave England because of encouraging Indians to not fight during World War I. Highly critical of Carl Jung and Theosophy for over-simplifying Eastern and indigenous traditions, he became a bridge between East and West, coined the term "post-industrial" and helped define and promote the idea of a perennial philosophy.

Ramana Maharshi
1879 – 1950 CE

(13 quotes)

A modern advocate in our non-thought lineage, Ramana Maharshi taught extensively but like Mahākāśyapa insisted in silence as the purest teaching, self-enquiry as the main spiritual method, and never publicized himself as a guru. Worshipped by thousands, he never claimed to have disciples and treated everyone with equal respect, never accepting private gifts. Somerset Maugham used him as the model for the guru in his book, The Razor’s Edge. He was a symbol for India that engendered a respect for their own culture and traditions that inspired independence from Britain.

B.R. Ambedkar (Babasaheb)
1891 – 1956 CE

(11 quotes)

While Gandhi unjustly holds international fame and respect; Ambedkar remains almost unknown outside India. Unlike Gandhi who supported the caste system and held deeply racist and anti-feminine views, Ambedkar campaigned for the Dalts (Untouchables), the rights of women, and labor. Independent India's first law minister, main writer of the first Constitution, and considered by many a true Bodhisattva, he criticized Hinduism as being the foundation of the caste system and began a Buddhist revival. When he formally became a Buddhist in 1956, 500,000 at once followed in his footsteps. In 2012 almost 20 million people voted him the “Greatest Indian.”

Krishnamurti (Jiddu Krishnamurti)
1895 – 1986 CE

(47 quotes)

Born into a poor family with 11 children and a mother who died when he was 10, chosen and groomed by the Theosophical Society when he was 14 years old to become the new “World Teacher,” a messianic Maitreya and Cosmic Christ figure; Krishnamurti was showered with financial resources, reverence, publicity and followers. When still young, he renounced this role of guru and mystical belief system, disbanded the organization, and launched a teaching career that emphasized psychological rather than external revolution; going beyond philosophy, nationality, caste, religion; the sense over the words; and freedom from all social, political, or religious conceptual prisons.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
1897 – 1981 CE
Householder guru of non-duality

(17 quotes)

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897 – 1981)
An Indian Guru of nondualism from a householder lineage; Nasargadatta began in life by opening a small store that mainly sold beedis (leaf-rolled cigarettes). He soon expanded this into a string of eight retail shops, married, and had 4 children. After meeting a guru and practicing a sadhana, he traveled across India alone until he realized that "nothing was wrong anymore,” returned home and stayed there maintaining his business and teaching. His exposure greatly expanded when North American and European followers discovered him but he remained unseduced by materialism and continued living in the most simple and unassuming way.

Alan Watts
1915 – 1973 CE

(51 quotes)

Episcopal priest become Buddhist, trickster, "philosophical entertainer,” counterculture hero, gifted speaker, and transducer to the West of Eastern philosophy; Watts wrote more than 25 books and in 1953 began a 9-year series of weekly radio broadcasts that continue being re-broadcast today. A friend and collaborator with Gary Snyder and Joseph Campbell, an inspiration for Robert Anton Wilson and Werner Erhard; Watts was criticized by teachers like Philip Kapleau, D. T. Suzuki, and Robert Baker Aitken but defended and described as a “great bodhisattva” by Shunryu Suzuki. Equating mystical experience with ecological awareness and Buddhism with psychotherapy, Watts became a bridge between culture and nature criticizing the modern view of “progress,” the idea of an absolute morality, and the ego-centricism preventing individual and international peace.

George Harrison
1943 – 2001 CE
Guitar-playing philanthropist

(7 quotes)

Singer-songwriter, "the quiet Beatle", guitar-playing genius, Hare Krishna fan, Yogananda student, philanthropist, and film producer; George Harrison influenced popular music toward folk rock and introduced Indian culture and music to the West. Two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, he co-founded the Traveling Wilburys, collaborated on songs and music with Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and Tom Petty. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” He supported the civil rights movement, protested against the Vietnam War, supported Greenpeace and nuclear disarmament, recorded pop music's first charity single to support Bangladesh which earned almost $14 million, and established a UNICEF Humanitarian Fund.

Related Sources (4 sources)

Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant

I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj

Mahābhārata महाभारतम् by Vyasa

Wisdom of China and India by Lín Yǔtáng

Quotes about the Hindu Lineage (13 quotes)

“He who neither rejoices, nor hates, nor sorrows, nor desires and who has renounced good and evil is thus fit to become one with Brahman.”

Vyasa व्यास 1 via Bhagavad Gita (tr: Swami Parananda)
Hindu immortals, Vishnu avatar, 5th incarnation of Brahma
from Mahābhārata महाभारतम्

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“Both in ancient Egypt and Indostan, the whole body of the people was divided into different castes... the caste of the farmers and laborers was superior to the castes of merchants and manufacturers... Though both were extremely populous, yet, in years of moderate plenty, they were both able to export great quantities of grains”

Adam Smith 1723 – 1790 CE
''The Father of Economic Capitalism"
from Wealth of Nations

Themes: Hinduism

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“I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance… we accept all religions as true.”

Swami Vivekananda ʃami bibekanɔnd̪o 1863 – 1902 CE
"The maker of modern India"

Themes: Hinduism

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“As India is par excellence the land of metaphysics and religion, China is by like preeminence the home of humanistic, or non-theological philosophy.”

Will Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
Philosophy apostle and popularizer of history's lessons
from Our Oriental Heritage

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“The Hindus criticize the Muslims for having spread their religion by the use of the sword. They also ridicule Christianity on the score of the Inquisition. But really, who is better and more worthy of our respect—the Muslims and Christians who attempted to thrust down the throats of unwilling persons what they regarded as necessary for their salvation, or the Hindu who would not spread the light, who would endeavor to keep others in darkness, who would not consent to share his intellectual and social inheritance with those who are ready and willing to make it a part of their own make-up? I have no hesitation in saying that if the Muslim has been cruel, the Hindu has been mean; and meanness is worse than cruelty.

B.R. Ambedkar 1891 – 1956 CE
(Babasaheb)
from Annihilation of Caste

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“To the 'Untouchables', Hinduism is a veritable chamber of horrors.”

B.R. Ambedkar 1891 – 1956 CE
(Babasaheb)

Themes: Hinduism

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“Any confusion of castes, any assumption by one man of another man's vocation and duties of state, is always say the Hindus, a moral evil and a menace to social stability.”

Aldous Huxley 1894 – 1963 CE
from Perennial Philosophy

Themes: Hinduism

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“Not until we see the richness of the Hindu mind and its essential spirituality can we understand India or hope to share the freedom and equality... we are trying to create out of this morally and politically chaotic world... India was China's teacher in religion and imaginative literature, and the world's teacher in trigonometry, quadratic equations, grammar, phonetics, Arabian Nights, animal fables, chess, as well as in philosophy that inspired Goethe, Schopenhauer, Emerson, and probably also old Aesop.”

Lín Yǔtáng 林語堂 1895 – 1976 CE
from Wisdom of China and India

Themes: Hinduism

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“Western religions begin with a notion that One—One God, One Book, One Son, One Church, One Nation under God—is better than many. The Hindu, dazzled by the wondrous variety of the creation, could not see it that way... the awestruck Hindus never came up with a single grand Creator-God... For so multiplex a world, the more gods the better!”

Daniel J. Boorstin 1914 – 2004 CE
American intellectual Paul Revere
from Creators: Heroes of the Imagination

Themes: God Hinduism

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“The decline of Indian Buddhism was centrally due to the fact that it never offered the Indian laity a complete religion. Early Buddhism knew no ceremonies for birth and death, marriage, illness, and other critical turns of private life... Only for the community of monks did Buddhism provide a complete and well-defined way of life... But Brahmins were needed for all the ordinary crises in life, ready with their rites and sacred formulas to ward off danger or minimize the damage. This elemental fact assured the survival of Brahminism in India.”

William Hardy McNeill 1917 – 2016 CE
Historian
from The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community, 1963

Themes: Buddhism Hinduism

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“The Bhagavad Gita — if he's God, what's he doing fighting on a battlefield? we're in these bodies, which is like a kind of chariot, and we're going through this incarnation, this life, which is kind of a battlefield… unless we bring Christ or Krishna or Buddha or whichever of our spiritual guides ... we're going to crash our chariot”

George Harrison 1943 – 2001 CE
Guitar-playing philanthropist

Themes: Hinduism

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“In Hinduism—a polytheistic religion that rejects the notion that the world of the gods is finite, but is willing to recognize any new divine power capable of rendering supernatural benefits to the community of worshipers—all nature was seen as a manifestation of the divine.”

J. Rufus Fears 1945 – 2012 CE
from Books That Made History

Themes: Hinduism

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“The Greeks did not waste any sacrifices on Fate, and Hindus built no temples to Atman... The fundamental insight of polytheism is that the supreme power governing the world is unconcerned with the mundane desires, cares, and worries of humans.”

Yuval Harari יובל נח הררי‎ 1976 CE –
Israeli historian, professor, and philosopher

from Sapiens

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