Talk:Hindus/Archive 3

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Sikh views of the term

I recently removed the following extended sentence from the lede:

This usage [ie, the Constitution of India using the word "Hindu" as a synonymn for Indian religions] , however does not have the approval of the Sikhs, and has been vehemently protested right from the time of drafting of the Indian Constitution. Hukam Singh, a Sikh representative to the Constituent Assembly declarred: " ... the Sikhs feel utterly disappointed and frustrated (by this Constitution). They feel that they have been discriminated against. Let it not be misunderstood that the Sikh community has agreed to this Indian Constitution. I wish to record an emphatic protest here. My community cannot subscribe its assent to this historic document."

because it was undue in the lede where the focus should be on describing how the term is used and not on commenting on such use, which can be mentioned later, albeit with better sourcing and context, and less grandstanding than above. Comments welcome. Abecedare (talk) 14:34, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

References

Absolutely disagree. At whatever place you are going to mention the Indian Constitution's grandstanding fake and deceiving definition, the vehement Sikh opposition to it must certainly be posted right alongside, rather than "somewhere else later". There can be no compromise on this whatsover. - Js82 (talk) 14:44, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

The right place to include the view would be the Definition section, where the Jain community's views and the related court cases are already mentioned. But before we do so, we would need to determine the best sources on the subject and represent them fairly. For example from the quote above, it is not at all clear what aspect of the Indian constitution Hukam Singh was protesting against. Can you provide the context from the source, by quoting the adjoining text? Abecedare (talk) 15:24, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Again, I completely disagree. As I said, the Sikh opposition (which has lead to decades of turmoil and genocides) must be mentioned alongside. If you don't want that to be in the lead, then even the Indian Constitution's definition should be moved to the Definition section. That would only be fair. I would provide the exact context for the quote. I have taken it out right now, and reverted to the pre-dispute version, mentioning that Sikhs don't approve this constitution of India, which is a sourced fact. Js82 (talk) 16:59, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I have removed your latest edit, since as I said above, it is undue in the lede and furthermore the citation does not support the statement it was appended to. The source does not even mention the Constitution's use of the terms Hindu/Hinduism. It instead says that Hukam Singh and Akali Dal's opposition to the constitution was based upon it not providing any special safeguards for Sikhs, which is not a relevant issue for this article. FWIW, the source would not qualify as a reliable source for wikipedia IMO, but we can set that aside for talk-page discussions. Abecedare (talk) 17:31, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

The July 19th version is the last uncontested version of the lead. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:56, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks NeilN. I had just looked at the edit and source till now, and not realized that that original text had been added by Js82 himself. That makes it worse since the original edit (and the readd) misrepresents the source. To spell it out, here is what the added text said:

This [ie, the Constitution of India using the word "Hindu" as a synonymn for Indian religions], however does not have the approval of the Sikhs from the very beginning, as the Sikh representatives in the constituent assembly refused to append their approval to this Constitution of India

and this is what the source that Js82 himself cited, actually says:

On 27th August 1947, the Constituent Assembly of India had passed a resolution that the question of minority rights in Eastern Punjab will be considered separately but subsequently minorities subcommittee recommended that no special safeguards will be provided to the Sikhs... Sikh representative Sardar Hukam Singh and Bhupinder Singh Mann had refused to append their signatures to the Constitution of India and Sardar Hukam Singh on 21st November, 1949 declared in the Constituent Assembly : “Let it not be misunderstood that the Sikh community has agreed to this Constitution. I wish to record an emphatic protest here. My community cannot subscribe its assent to this historic document.”

Selectively citing sources to push ones POV is bad. Misrepresenting them is unacceptable. Abecedare (talk) 18:10, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Abecedare: Neither am I misrepresenting, nor pushing my POV. Read below. It is rather you who is pushing your own POV.

Couple of points: "Not providing safegaurds for Sikhs" is nothing else but trying to dubiously absorb them as Hindus. While you are hung up on this one resource, I can find you numerous resources wherein this (and similar related) statements of Hukam Singh, or otherwise, can be explicitly put in relation to the definition of Hindu in the constitution. Let me know if you want them. Further, I would also bring in 10s of other references that point out the vehement Sikh opposition to this definition. The whole point is to register the opposition of Sikhs to these dubious attempts by Hindus and the Indian Constitution, which right now has been very conveniently put up in the lead, in a nonchalant way, as if it has no implications.

Lastly, to reiterate, given the gravity of this issue (that lead to genocides), the Sikh opposition must be stated right where the constitution is referred. I have no issues with where this is actually stated. IMO, this should all be stated in the "Definition Section".

Neil, please chime in with your comments as well. Js82 (talk) 18:37, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it is best to move the Constitution's mention to somewhere down into the body. The Constitution wasn't actually trying to define religious identities. At the time of the writing of the Constitution (and throughout the British period), "Hindu" had two meanings, one as the followers of Hinduism and the other as the followers of all Indian religions. The latter meaning is older, dating back to entry of the Arabs into Sindh. For certain legal contexts, it is convenient to use that meaning (e.g., Hindu Code Bills). That is all the Constitution was trying to do. There is no point losing one's head over it. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 01:46, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

First, I think we are agreeing on moving the constitution part out of the lead section. Wherever it is moved, the Sikh (and possibly other religions' as well) objections should be directly pointed out at the same place. As I said, I can provide 10s of references for that.

Next, coming to the points raise above by Kautilya, while for you it could be a simple matter of terminology, for the people who profess the other religions, it is a matter of their identity. So, please do not try to trivialize the issue (which is the impression I got from your message). We can spend more time on this issue later, and I would come back actually to even challenge all else that has been written in the very first paragraph (without worrying about the Constitution part as well). Even all that seems focused on trying to assimilate everyone into Hindu category, which is completely dishonest and again contrary to the expectations of the other faiths. In short, even that piece must be classified with information on the objections from other religions. To be discussed further ..

And by the way, I am not the first minority voice here expressing these opinions. A quick look above on this page would make it clear that others have strongly protested earlier as well. But, unfortunately, as always, their voice seems to have been subdued by a slew of swift action from the Hindu lobby that seems to have complete control here on Wikipedia. I would however regard Kautilya differently, based on my interactions with him so far. Js82 (talk) 07:45, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Hmm. You show an overwhelming sense of political activism, which is unbecoming of a Wikipedian. - Kautilya3 (talk) 08:15, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I only have an overwhelming sense of asking for a fair representation of facts. Nothing more, nothing less. Construing it (pointing out the objections of other religions to present a neutral POV) as political activism is your own viewpoint. And it would be appreciated if the discussion does not digress into personality tussle, but remains on track. I can also argue endlessly on the political activism that is behind the way the first paragraph of this article has been written. Thanks. Js82 (talk) 17:04, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: (in reply to your 1:46 comment) I think the broad use of the term in the constitution is worth mentioning in the lede, not because it is "right", but because it is notable and because the lede is supposed to summarize the article (and this article is dominated by the definitions of Hindu issue, in any case). That said, we can expand the sentence along the lines "In the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" .., which adherents of those faiths have objected to".

But before we do so, we should briefly document such objections in the article body, which currently only talks about the Jainism-related cases. For this we'll need secondary sources on the topic, and represent them accurately; also, recent sources would be preferable since there have been legal developments over the last decade or so with respect to Jainism and IIRC Brahmoism. I would expect there to be law review articles on the subject, but am not too familiar with Indian legal literature. Any help? Abecedare (talk) 17:19, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence for the Constitution's notion of "Hindu" as including Buddhists, Jains etc. as being notable. Nobody uses the term that way (save the Hindu nationalists) and the scholarly sources take no notice of it either. It only comes up in the context of the Sikhs' objection to it. So I think it is best left out of the lead. It is pointless controversy. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 18:52, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing the references. As I said before, I certainly admire your honesty. If only we had more people like you here (who actually spend time trying to understand, rather than bombarding others with hollow scare warnings to satisfy their own egos), it would be such a great platform to share and learn.

I concur that the constitutional reference should be moved down. The references you shared can be used to point out the Sikh opposition.

(On a more personal note, just to clarify/emphasize again, please do note that this is not a trivial issue for other faiths, irrespective of the actual reasoning behind it. I do however realize your own unbiased stance on this issue, which certainly would make it a pointless controversy to you.) Js82 (talk) 06:47, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I agree with you that religious scholars ignore the CoI's definition, or rather use of, of the term Hindu just as language scholars ignore what languages the GoI deems to "schedule" or declares to be "Classical". However, as the references you cite show, the CoI's use of the terms is notable in legal, political, and current affairs literature (and not just due to opposition by Sikhs; more sources are surely available about Jain, and possily Buddhist, views). So I still think that it is worth mentioning in the lede with the additional note I suggested above; and the sources you found can be used to provide adequate coverage in the article body. I'll drop a note at WT:INB to invite further input. Abecedare (talk) 19:01, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

For the moment, I have just noted the Sikh and Jain opposition to the constitution definition. I think we can move the definition down soon, as the consensus here seems to suggest so far. I believe the fact that the Sikhs did not even provide their approval to the Constitution of India is of absolute relevance here, and must be mentioned. I would do that sometime. Js82 (talk) 07:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

That is fine for the time being. This article needs considerable work anyway. (Even thought it looks nice because of the pictures, the content is pretty disorganized and haphazard.) - Kautilya3 (talk) 09:29, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

References

First paragraph, Controversial Definitions Up front ?

I find the first paragraph of the article to be rather strange. It gives the controversial definitions (one coming from a RSS mouthpiece, and another coming from some Greek literature) upfront. The more commonly used and most logical definition (a follower of Hinduism), is provided at the end. In a neutral, "disinterested tone" article, the controversial parts should not be provided so much prominence. If anything, they should be included in the "disputes" section, no ?

On a related note, I think it is time Hindus should come forward and clearly define who they are. If you want to keep referring to the "outsider's" definitions (anyone living beyond the Indus river), then that's just a geographical definition. Why do you then define Hindu-ism as a religion, the "oldest religion"? The "ism" starts to define a set of religious beliefs, which clearly are not common amongst the different religions practiced by people on the other side of Indus. So, basically, if you want to say Hindu=Indian, then defining Hinduism as a "religion" makes no sense. And please do not give the "way of life, rather than a religion" argument. Every religion is a way of life. The point is : why go beyond the geographical definition and define Hindu"ism" as a religion or a way of life ? Js82 (talk) 00:27, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@Js82: Are you referring to the Etymology section? Wikipedia is not the place to do original research or "invite their Hindus to come forward and....". Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:01, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch, no, I am referring to the very first paragraph of the article's lead section. All of the information there, except the last sentence, is unnecessary and not deserving to be the in the lead section, let alone form the first few sentences of the article (that usage is highly controversial, as it tends to subsume any person on the other side of Indus as Hindu, which is not accepted by practitioners of every other religion than Hinduism; and even with Hindus, perhaps by only a fraction.) The first paragraph should just state that Hindu is a follower of the religion Hinduism, and perhaps state some of the concrete aspects of Hindu life and religion. This would be the rational lead, given that it is the same with articles on Christian (follower of Christianity), Buddhist (follower of Buddhism), etc. The controversial and confusing material (including the definitions given by Greeks and Persians) should come in later Sections.

I understand it is not the forum to invite discussions, I guess what I mentioned above would make some people think though. Js82 (talk) 02:08, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@Js82: The lead summarizes the important aspects of the main article, see WP:LEAD. Historical meaning of the term is an important aspect. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:43, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

It might be historical and important, but is highly controversial also, and does not deserve to be part of the first paragraph of the lead. As I said, first paragraph should state the obvious and most common interpretation: Hindu is a follower of Hinduism; just like the other similar pages: Christian (follower of Christianity), Buddhist (follower of Buddhism), etc. Js82 (talk) 08:03, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Disagree with the change you suggest, see reasons above. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:35, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@Js82: Please state clearly what is controversial about it, and provide reliable sources if you can. Also, please avoid turning Wikipedia into a platform. - Kautilya3 (talk) 13:16, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Relevance of Sikh opposition to Indian Constitution in this article

@Js82: You reinstated this sentence: "The Sikh representatives in the Indian constituent assembly actually did not provide their approval to the Constitution of India, citing discrimination and deceit." How is that relevant to this article? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:01, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@Abecedare:, @Kautilya3: What are your thoughts on that reinstated sentence? FWIW, indeed, a sentence about Sikh and Jain objections to being included in the definition of Hindu, is due and notable in this article, for reasons discussed above on this talk page. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:01, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Since we are citing the Constitutions definition, it is of fundamental relevance to state that Sikhs did not accept the Constitution itself. The reason they did not accept it is because minority rights were not protected (because the Constitution did not even recognize the minorities to be separate from Hindus.)

"On 27th August 1947, the Constituent Assembly of India had passed a resolution that the question of minority rights in Eastern Punjab will be considered separately but subsequently minorities subcommittee recommended that no special safeguards will be provided to the Sikhs... Sikh representative Sardar Hukam Singh and Bhupinder Singh Mann had refused to append their signatures to the Constitution of India and Sardar Hukam Singh on 21st November, 1949 declared in the Constituent Assembly : “Let it not be misunderstood that the Sikh community has agreed to this Constitution. I wish to record an emphatic protest here. My community cannot subscribe its assent to this historic document.”"

"no special safeguards will be provided to the Sikhs" is equal in part to Sikhs not being regarded as a distinct minority. In the following 65 years, this issue has come up many times, and Sikhs have always objected to the Constitutional definition, and have always cited not having agreed to it. Js82 (talk) 02:20, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually, since we are citing the Constitution's controversial definition, it is of fundamental relevance to state that Sikhs did not even accept the Constitution. I think even this much is a valid reasoning for it to be included (Without even going into the nitty-gritty details of who said what and why. That all would be needed if we really want to delve into the topic.) Js82 (talk) 02:28, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@Js82: This is not an article about their constitution, nor a place for Sikh/Jain/etc issues advocacy, see WP:WWIN. Do you have a non-website/non-SPS reference, such as a peer reviewed journal article or a book that went through editorial process or another WP:HISTRS on this subject? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:43, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: I agree that "a sentence about Sikh and Jain objections to being included in the definition of Hindu, is due and notable in this article". Criticism of the constitution does not belong here. If Js82 wants to make a positive contribution, I would encourage him to find good sources that talk about all the issues surrounding the inclusion of the Indian minority religions in the "Hindu" umbrella and what problems that might have caused. That would be relevant to the article. But "issues" does not mean protests. - Kautilya3 (talk) 18:00, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Hindu view of Hindus

No doubt we have various foreigners viewing "Hindus" as encompassing Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, and scholars mocking them. But we don't have anything in the article that establishes how the Hindus saw themselves (and Jains and Buddhists) historically. Did the Indians think of India as having 3 separate religions, or were they all fused together? - Kautilya3 (talk) 16:57, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Dharma or dhamma is the word one reads in historic Indian literature. The phrase Hindu dharma, appears in Indian literature during the Islamic era. Their texts refer to Islam as "Turk dharma" (identified by presumed geographical origin). There is some discussion of how Indian religions (Hinduism / Buddhism / Jainism) viewed each other, in ancient and medieval era, but does this belong in this article on 'Hindu'? @Joshua Jonathan: what do you think? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 19:57, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I guess it's relevant for contemporary 'Hindus', since there is a lot of debate on what constitutes a ("real") Hindu, and a lot of people (Hindu's) don't like to be categorized by the whims of some other people (Hindus') who have completely other views on who's a Hindu, and what it means to be a 'Hindu'. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:08, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

They married each other, feasted together, built temples together or near each other's, debated philosophy (sometimes intensely), and taught their next generation each other's dharma texts. In cultural sense, this may be interesting to contemporary Hindus / Buddhists / Jains. I will meditate on which recent scholarly sources may be best for a summary. If you know some, please share. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:39, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

• @Ms Sarah Welch: Well, yes, but did the "Hindu dharma" of those times include or exclude Buddhism and Jainism? We can't assume that they meant by the term what we tend to understand today. The Gauri Vishwanathan quote says "The application of laws derived from Sanskrit classical texts leveled the community of Hindus." But the question remains whether these laws "leveled" them or whether they were already leveled to start with. The article is taking it as axiomatic that there were three religions in India. It is not obvious to me at all. If there were three religions, how come one of them was unnamed? - Kautilya3 (talk) 20:46, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

• @Joshua Jonathan: It does not seem to me that there is a strong identity of "Hindu," outside of the Hindu nationalist circles. For most people, they are "Hindu" just because they follow Hinduism and that is what the followers of Hinduism are supposed to be called. It is not an identity in that sense. On the other hand, it is an identity in the sense of carrying Indian cultural heritage. Whenever anybody says "I am a Hindu," that is what they mean. That sets them apart from Muslims and Christians. But it does not set them apart from Jains, Buddhists or Sikhs. This ambiguity of meaning has always existed and will possibly exist for ever. - Kautilya3 (talk) 21:11, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Which is fine with me. But hey, who am I? An atheist liberal christian cum "Buddhist." Talking about "inclusivism"... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:40, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

But it is apparently not fine with Sikhs, and at least some Buddhists. Frictions arise as a result. It is possible that a lot of the Hindu-Muslim friction is also a result of clash of identities. So, explaining what the Hindu identity means in this article would be quite useful. - Kautilya3 (talk) 09:52, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

History of Hindus

@Joshua Jonathan: With your experience and contributions to History of Hinduism, would you like to make an attempt or at least share some ideas on how to improve the last two sections of this article? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 17:33, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Just remove them per WP:FORK? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 21:13, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Second that. The scope of this article should be the use of the term and possibly demographics, with the discussion of the religion, beliefs, practices, and history of Hinduism (not Hindus) etc covered by Hinduism and its sub-articles. Abecedare (talk) 21:29, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I am not entirely sure of that. The point made by Redtigerxyz on 28 September 2008 above is that there is need for an article on "Hindus" as a people as opposed to "Hinduism," a religion. I will have to mull over this a bit before I can decide. I suggest everybody involved read this intriguing article. -- unsigned comment by Kautilya3

@JJ:, @Abecedare: Indeed, that was my instinct too, to remove those two sections. A summary demographics is a good idea, and Pew reports on Hindus should suffice as an RS. @Kautilya3: I interpret @Redtigerxyz's 2008 comment in response to @Gizza's proposal as, "keep this article and not redirect it to Hinduism article". I don't believe "delete this article and redirect Hindu to Hinduism" is what @JJ/@A or I are suggesting. The concern is whether "History of Hindus" section in this article should be retained? if yes, then what should go in there, from which HISTRS sources, and how will it be different from "History of Hinduism"? Will appreciate and await your thoughts. Thanks all. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:56, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: If the Pollock 1993 article on 'Hindu identity - Ramayana epic' formed with Islamic invasion and continuing into modern politics intrigues you, see the extended criticism of the 1993 Pollock paper published in 1998 by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya, Representing the other?: Sanskrit sources and the Muslims (eighth to fourteenth century), ISBN 978-8173042522 (reviewed here).

more details on Pollock, Chattopadhyaya, etc

Chattopadhyaya extensively quotes Sanskrit texts such as the 14th-century Madhuravijayam showing that different parts of medieval India conceptualized the Islamic invasion, wars, violence and persecution with not just Ramayana epic as Pollock suggests, but with other figures and ancient mythologies, increasingly refining the identity of 'Muslim as other, violent and barbarian' and their own [Hindu] identity as a contrasting opposite there of.

Over the last 15 years, scholars such as Lorenzen have sided with Chattopadhyaya, but note that both Pollock and Chattopadhyaya are asserting the same premise, with Pollock emphasizing Ramayana to support that premise, while Chattopadhyaya presenting a flood of evidence beyond Ramayana. And if these intrigue you, see related Hindu identity related publications each by Heinrich von Stietencron, Lawrence Babb, Peter van der Veer, Gabriella Ferro-Luzzi, Thomas Trautman, Alf Hltebeitel and Cynthia Talbot. They don't agree in everything, but a rough summary from their various publications: [1] Hindu identity was not invented by British, [2] Hindu identity existed in pre-Islamic times, but was fuzzy, inclusive, plural; [3] the arrival of Islam, followed by the rivalry between Muslims and Hindus between 1200-1600 triggered a sharper self-conscious of Hindu identity. According to von Stietencron, this happened because Muslim rulers maintained their foreign and Islamic identity, while rebelling natives established an indigenous and Hindu identity. That is, the 'whom they are not' helped refine the identity question 'who they are'. This happened by 16th century, long before the colonial era started.

Should we summarize from Pollock, Chattopadhyaya, von Stietencron, etc and mention Madhuravijayam and such texts as "History of Hindu identity" in this article? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 10:13, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. Pretty much everything we said in Talk:Hinduism/Archive 30#Revisit the Islamic period belongs here, not there, as I said earlier [1]. "Hindus" came first and "Hinduism" later. The history of "Hindus" as a people should be covered here. In fact, it can be our answer to the Hindu nationalists. - Kautilya3 (talk) 10:51, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Lutgendorf says "I propose that the author of Kirtilata was not unique in his perceptions of a new and disturbingly alien urban environment, only in recording them. A more characteristic response was withdrawal into other themes, leaving the royal city behind." So the silences themselves form a code for trauma, which the scholars are now beginning to understand. - Kautilya3 (talk) 11:18, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

References

@Kautilya3: is our consensus then to remove offtopic and WP:FORK text, add summary demographics and History of Hindu identity? That may fit it with @JJ's earlier suggestion. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:23, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I prefer the title History of Hindus, but if Hindu identity gives you a better focus, let us go with it. We will need to end it leading into Hindu renaissance and Hindu nationalism (summarising the main articles). -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:51, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Some thought/expansion of my post above

• "History of Hinduism" deals with how the rituals, beliefs, and philosophy encompassed by the term "Hinduism" have changed and that is best dealt under Hinduism and its sub-articles.
• On the other hand the history of of people who happen to be (or, are thought of as) Hindu is inseparable from the history of India (or Indian subcontinent, if you wish) and is best dealt with under those articles
• The title, "History of Hindus" on the other hand suggests that we are talking of history of Hindu people qua their being Hindu people. Now, while there are certainly scholarly works dealing with how Hindus fared under say the rule of the Mughals, the British etc (and that can be discussed in the respective article), I am not aware of any literature that deals with the subject comprehensively (contrast with history of Jewish people, on which there are thousands of books), and attempts to write up such a history will turn into an exercise of either, (a) on-wikipedia synthesis in which accounts of different eras are stitched together, or more likely, (b) POV pushing that, say, ahistorically projects wars between rulers who happen to be Hindu/Muslim/Christian etc as wars between Hindus/Muslims/Christains etc (cf, the POV batteles at Hemu, Shivaji etc).

For these reason I don't think this article, or any other on wikipedia, needs to cover "History of Hindus". The article should cover the question of Hindu identity, of course; and it already does so in the Terminology section, which can be expanded and improved, and even renamed, if needed. Abecedare (talk) 20:08, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok, good points. Let us stick to "Hindu identity." - Kautilya3 (talk) 22:14, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Dubious tag

@LouisAragon: Please explain your "dubious" tag and concern here. It is a direct quote from a widely cited scholar that you tagged. Do you have reliable sources that state something different? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 19:50, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, I don't understand either the footnote or the dubious tag. Is there a typo in the footnote? The term "yavana" doesn't appear in it. Secondly, what is dubious here? The translation of yavana? It is meaningless to put a dubious tag without explaining what is dubious, kind of like doing a revert without an edit summary. Bad practice! - Kautilya3 (talk) 21:07, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I remember seeing yavana, mleccha and 7 other words for Turk-Muslims / Persian-Afghan-Muslims in three sources, but relied on a single author / same text to avoid OR-synth issues. I will check again about the footnote etc. The dubious tag makes no sense to me, but I am assuming an act of good faith. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:31, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

On p. 307 of the Chattopadhyaya article, I see him writing "yavana (Muslims)". This does not of course mean yavana=Muslim, i.e., if that is what LouisAragon is wondering about. At this stage of history, yavana was being used pretty much for all foreigners or foreign cultures indiscriminately. So, one has to interpret it according to the context. In the context of Madhura Vijayam, it was referring to the Madurai Sultans. - Kautilya3 (talk) 00:20, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Indeed, Yavana did not always mean Muslim, it meant different people in different texts. In the context of Madhura Vijayam, it does, and as you note, to yavana (Muslims). Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:27, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Subaltern historiography has decoded the term "Hindu" in the sense it was used upto 18th century. Just look how in the casual or interchangeable way the terms "Hindu" and "Turks(Muslims)" are used in the folklore of the 18th century. You will have to see how it was used in actual circumstances. There is no need to make a simple term complex. And, "Yavanas" meant foreigners in India.

Na maen arabi na lahori
Na maen hindi shehar nagauri
Na hindu na turak peshawri
Na maen rehnda vich nadaun

Bulla, ki jaana maen kaun

"Not an Arab, nor Lahori/ Neither Hindi, nor Nagauri,/ Hindu, Turk (Muslim), nor Peshawari/ Nor do I live in Nadaun / Bulleh! to me, I am not known."-Bulleh Shah (Bulla Ki Jana).

Again, both "Yavana" and "Tusharas"( which later became "Turak") were not new terms. They were even used in the 1st millennium. Kshmendra wrote- " He (Chandragupta II of Imperial Guptas of the 4th century) unburdened the sacred earth of the Barbarians like the Sakas, Mlecchas, Kambojas, Yavanas, Tusharas, Parasikas, Hunas, etc. by annihilating these sinful Mlecchas completely".Ghatus (talk) 05:31, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, it is hardly a simple word. Were the Madurai Sultans foreigners? Was Malik Kafur a foreigner? This is a way of "othering." The Representing the Other? book has an entire chapter on the words. Chattopadhyaya notes that Yavana/Mleccha/Turushka were used pretty much interchangeably. But there are shades of meaning that he is missing, I think. Yavana seems to be a polite way of othering. Mleccha is a put down. And, Turushka is a pure ethnic term that came to mean literally Muslim in South India. Chattopadhyaya also notes (and this is extremely important) that the term Musalamana was almost never used. It seems that the medieval people were a lot cleverer than we give them credit for. - Kautilya3 (talk) 08:15, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes. You are right. I stand corrected on it. I should have used the phrase "foreigner either in origin or in culture or in practice or in religion etc." It was not cent percent native as far as the term "Yavana" is concerned. BTW, my emphasis was on the term "Hindu". Ghatus (talk) 08:26, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello! Yes, I was skeptical about the translation of the word. @Kautilya3; that was indeed partly what I wondered about initially. :-) I understood that it indeed doesn't refer to Muslims in general, but had to be interpreted from the overall text, but knowing that, the previous translation (Turk etc Muslims) wouldn't be entirely correct given what (what Kautilya correctly noted) time-frame this played. I just checked the new translation, and I believe it's more appropriate given its "variable meaning". Bests - LouisAragon (talk) 11:34, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Multi-layered identity

The opening sentence speaks of Hindu as a "geographical, cultural and religious identifier." However, the majority of the article focuses only on the religious identity. The multiple layers of the identity are lost. This needs considerable work. - Kautilya3 (talk) 10:28, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Flood

I think Flood's treatment is too shallow for our purposes here. I will either replace the references to Flood, or use them in conjunction with Stietencron and Arvind Sharma for additional support. - Kautilya3 (talk) 13:19, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

We know for instance that Al-Hind refers to the country, not the people. The Arabic Hindu is derived from Hind, a second notion distinct from the Persian Hindu (which only referred to the country, not the people). - Kautilya3 (talk) 13:34, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Some 20-30% of the text is discussing the historical "geographical, cultural and religious identifier". That seems enough, unless you have some HISTRS that presents something that hasn't been summarized in this article yet. Al-Hind referred to both, but if you have HISTRS with "only country, not people", we should add it for npov. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:17, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Flood cites Thapar, Interpreting Early India, p. 77 as his source, but Thapar doesn't say Al-Hind meant people. It is WP:UNDUE to represent an isolated viewpoint as scholarly consensus. The authoritative source for Al-Hind is Andre Wink. - Kautilya3 (talk) 14:44, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

It referred to both, geography and to "of the people of Hind". Not isolated view, but the common. See Lorenzen's Who Invented Hinduism?, pages 33-34; Andre Wink's Al-Hind the Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Chapter 9; etc. Does Thapar say "Al-Hind" did not mean people? Which book? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:30, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Ok, it says that, according to Stietencron, Hindu in plural refers to people. I have seen that claim before, but Stietencron hasn't told us the Persian word. Based on what I have seen in other places, it is most likely Hinduvan, which has a bit more derivation to it than just being a plural of Hindu. But, we will let that pass. The more serious problem in Flood's quote was that the Arabic Hind itself referred to people. That I haven't seen anywhere else. I have now deleted that part of the quote from the lead. Flood's source didn't check out. - Kautilya3 (talk) 17:44, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: You haven't yet produced corroboration from any sources to say that Hind means people of India. Lorenzen, pp 33-34 doesn't say it. If Wink says it, please provide a quote. - Kautilya3 (talk) 06:05, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

@Kautiilya3: Perhaps you missed this in Lorenzen, Quote: "Although the English translator liberally uses the word 'Hindu', the original Arabic text appears to only use phrases literally equivalent to '(of) the people of India (hind)'.

Meanwhile I checked Thapar's books. She too acknowledges Persian texts with the term Al-Hind is referring to "people of India" (not necessarily religion of the people of India), which is what Flood is stating. See Thapar's book Somanatha, page 209. Andre Wink too, in the book mentioned above on pages 174-175. Axel Michaels book you consider HISTRS below, does too on page 13 lines 6-10. Please note that all these authors, including Flood, are discussing the contextual usage / etymological implications of term Al-Hind used in Persian texts, not literal translation of Hind. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 09:23, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if you are mixing up the various words. I am talking specifically about the Arabic Hind or Al-Hind. Here is what the sources say:

• Flood: "In Arabic texts, Al-Hind is a term used for the people of modern-day India."
• Lorenzen: "the original Arabic text appears to only use phrases literally equivalent to "[of] the people of India [hind]." (hind in brackets is the Arabic word for India here.)
• von Stietencron (Quoted by Lorenzen): "The term Hindu itself is a Persian term. Used in the plural it denotes the people of Hind."
• Wink: (You cite pp. 174-174, which have no occurrences of Hind except in page headers.) p. 192: "We are therefore left with an Arabic term Hind which covers both South Asia and Indianized Southeast Asia."
• Arvind Sharma: "India was known as al-Hind in pre-IslamiAc rabia (Wink1 990,1 :195-6)".
• Thapar: "Al-Hind was therefore a geographical identity [and the Hindus were all the people who lived on this land]."
• Michaels: (You cite p. 13, which has no occurrences of Hind. It seems word is mentioned nowhere in the book, according to Google Books.)

Clearly, Flood stands alone in claiming that Al-Hind meant the people of India. So, this quote is WP:UNDUE. I am pinging Joshua Jonathan to settle the issue because we seem to be talking past each other. - Kautilya3 (talk) 10:45, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

It's not clear enough to me what the dispute is about. Kautilya3, how would you formulate the openng-sentence? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:22, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

The dispute here is about the extended quotation of Flood that appears in the lead. In this edit [2], I removed the first sentence of it because (1) Al-Hind means India not its people, and (2) the 18th century reference to "Hindu" is about a thousand years too late. I presume that medieval Indian history isn't Flood's speciality. Ms Sarah Welch has put the sentence back. Hence the dispute (at least this part of the dispute). - Kautilya3 (talk) 14:37, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I don't know how Google search is parsing the search, but I am looking at hard copies in my references above. Let us step back a bit, past Flood's embedded quote and his context. The Flood quote is after the following sentence in the lead: "By the 16th-century, the term began to refer to residents of India who were not Turks or Muslims" in lead. Sources should directly support this.

How about this compromise: [1] trim Flood as you suggest; [2] add the following additional source there with quote: David Lorenzen (2010), Rethinking Religion in India: The Colonial Construction of Hinduism (Editors: Esther Bloch et al), Routledge, ISBN 978-0415548908, page 29, Quote: "When it comes to early sources written in Indian languages (and also Persian and Arabic), the word 'Hindu' is used in a clearly religious sense in a great number of texts at least as early as the sixteenth century. (...) Although al-Biruni's original Arabic text only uses a term equivalent to the religion of the people of India, his description of Hindu religion is in fact remarkably similar to those of nineteenth-century European orientalists. For his part Vidyapati, in his Apabhransha text Kirtilata, makes use of the phrase 'Hindu and Turk dharmas' in a clearly religious sense and highlights the local conflicts between the two communities. In the early sixteenth century texts attributed to Kabir, the references to 'Hindus' and to 'Turks' or 'Muslims' (musalamans) in a clearly religious context are numerous and unambiguous." Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:13, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

@JJ: What I would like to see in the embedded quote and cited source is a direct and meaningful support for that lead sentence/paragraph. I have no particular preference whether it comes from Gavin Flood or some other RS. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:19, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

@Sarah Welch: The Flood quote, even with my surgery, is still supporting your line, but unfortunately he is talking about the terminology under the British Raj, too late for our purposes. I also added a quote from Stietencron, which is saying that this happened after 712AD. Arvind Sharma also agrees that this happened in the Brahmanabad settlement. We can add Lorenzen too if you wish, but I think it is better to discuss Lorenzen in more detail in the body. - Kautilya3 (talk)

I'm sorry, but I can't help the two of you here. It just doesn't get into my brain. Maybe tomorrow. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:21, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Cultural identity

@Kautilya3: Sharma source is commenting on Indian, not Hindu. Pew Research, official Indian religion-demography reports, modern scholarship does not count "Indian Muslims", "Indian Buddhists", "Indian Sikhs" etc as Hindus. Implying Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists etc in India are all Hindus, is undue, fringe. I removed it from the lead. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:17, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how you can claim that Arvind Sharma is WP:FRINGE. Can you clarify why you think he is not talking about Hindu? - Kautilya3 (talk) 06:16, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Note also that "Hindu Muslims" is attributed to Golwalkar, not to Arvind Sharma. The source I used is actually Michaels, Hinduism, Past and Present, pp. 13-15, even though Kripa Sridharan also discusses similar ideas. - Kautilya3 (talk) 06:34, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Read again. I wrote "Implying Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists etc in India are all Hindus, is undue, fringe", I did not write "Arvind Sharma is fringe". Don't misstate / misquote me.

FWIW, on page 25 of the Sherma and Sharma book, it states, "...the Indians themselves had not yielded to such a definition of religion...". Indians is a broader term than Hindus. When you added, "the term [Hindu] also continues to designate a cultural identity", you are implying that the term Hindu is not currently associated with Hinduism, and Hindu currently continues to be a cultural identity. I am unable to verify this. Please provide a quote from Sherma and Sharma book, or Michaels, or any other non-primary WP:RS. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 09:23, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, in this article the word "culture" explicitly occurs only in the discussions concerning Hindutva. Here is one for example: "The solution which V.D. Savarkar proposed was based on a feature of Hinduism which distinguishes it from Christianity, namely, that, within it, religion and culture are not distinguished as they are in the West." Note that he calls it a "feature of Hinduism", not something Savarkar invented on his own. Hindutva, till today, calls itself "cultural nationalism," not religious. You can find more discussion on it in the Hindutva article.
• More generally, this deep and insightful paper is making the point that "religion" in the Western sense is inapplicable to the Indian society, and perhaps to all Asian societies. What exists in reality is a "culture" of which religion in the sense of an array of religious beliefs forms a part, but it is not the core of it. From this point of view, the so-called "Hinduism" is the Hindu culture viewed through a European lense.
• Here is the opening line of an Encyclopedia article on Hindu culture and civilization: "It may be impossible to define `Hinduism' as one religion, but it makes perfect sense to speak of a Hindu culture and a Hindu civilization." The point is that "Hinduism" may be unreal and made up. But "Hindu culture" is something that certainly exists.
• Kim Knott says, "One modern Hindu philosopher, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, declared Hinduism to be 'a way of life'. By doing so, he made the point that it was not something separate from society and politics, from making money, sex, and love, and getting an education. And, like other modern Hindus, he suggested that the closest term to be found within Indian thought and practice was Hindu dharma, the law, order, truth, and duties of the Hindu people." She then goes on to say: "But the meaning of 'Hindu' began to change. With the discovery by the British of Vedic scriptures and the brahmin class and culture, it began to be invested with religious significance (on the principal of it being analogous to the term 'Christian'). 'Hindoo' and, later, 'Hinduism' began to be identified with the religious traditions of the Aryan people..."

- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:59, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

References

@Kautilya3: The shift from Hindu to Hindu culture reads like a tautology, shifting the task of defining and describing the term Hindu to defining and describing the term Hindu culture. In other words, the phrase "Hindu culture" presumes the premise and knowledge of "Hindu" and "culture", and then attempts to define "Hindu" from that conclusion. To say there is nothing called "Hindu", but there is something called "Hindu culture" is deriving the conclusion from a presumed premise. It is like saying there is nothing called "pecan", but there is "pecan pie". I don't see where Knott or Cush or etc are stating "Hindu doesn't exist, but Hindu culture certainly exists" (which is not same as "Hinduism is difficult topic to cover, but Hindu culture is easier to describe"). Furthermore, they are not implying that Indian Christians or Indian Buddhists or Indian Muslims or Indian Sikhs are all Indian Hindus, or implying that Indian Hindu culture is different from Indian Sikh culture or Indian Buddhist culture. We can't imply contemporary Sikhs or Buddhists or Muslims or Christians or Animists are all Hindus. Sorry, I don't see how the tautology will improve this article either.

We already have "way of life" and "culture" language in the article. We also have the British references and colonial construction of Hindoo and Hindu in the article.

Just like Muslims (Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Ahmadiyya, etc) and Islam, Christians (Catholic, Protestant, Baptists, Eastern Orthodox, etc) and Christianity, Buddhists (Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, etc) and Buddhism, there are Hindus (diverse groups) and Hinduism. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:14, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I see you talking as if it is a given that "Hindu" definitely means adherence to Hinduism (a perspective matching that of Js82). That contradicts the opening paragraph of the article. The reality of the matter is that we don't know what "Hindu" means. The term started its journey as a geographic term, then ethnic and cultural, and finally religious. All these meanings continue to coexist, and when somebody says "I am a Hindu" we don't know what exactly they mean. It could be one of these of the meanings, or perhaps all of them. That is the complexity of the "Hindu" concept that you are ignoring. We have terms like "Hindu culture" and "Hindu civilization" whereas we don't have "Christian civilization" or "Buddhist civilization". So your "Pecan pie" analogy doesn't cut it. (Islam on the other hand does have a civilization attached to it, but there the movement was in the opposite direction, from religion, to culture and civilization. For Hindu, it is the other way around.) - Kautilya3 (talk) 09:46, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: If somebody's statement "I am a Hindu" confuses, so would a similar statement from a "Wiracocha-Christian, Ahmadiyya-Muslim, etc". But that is a forum-y discussion. No, I am not saying Hindu definitely means only X or only Y or only Z. I am saying we need to stick with the sources for this article, and I don't see where and at which page number Knott or Cush or etc are stating "Hindu don't exist, but Hindu culture certainly exists". I sense in your reading, this wiki article currently doesn't explain the historic "Hindu culture" aspect, which Cush writes as "is shared by Buddhists, Jains and others", and later goes on to write, "given striking linguistic, cultural and religious similarities between Europe and India....". If that is how you are reading this article, I would welcome content that further explains this "Hindu culture" aspect. FWIW, the shared culture aspect is already mentioned 12 times in the article's lead/main/notes, including in the opening sentence of the lead. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:30, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Etymology vs Terminology

I think there is a lot of duplication and split-discussion between the two sections. It is better to have a small and crisp Etymology section that says where the term comes from, and discuss literature etc in the Terminology section. - Kautilya3 (talk) 16:34, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Making it crisp may be challenging, given etymology means "the origin of a word and the way in which that word's meanings has evolved and changed from different perspectives over human history", and given how the meaning of word 'Hindu' has evolved and changed from different perspectives. Which particularly paragraph(s) do you have in mind? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:58, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Let us divide the time period into three: (1) classical (pre-al-Biruni) (2) medieval (3) modern (post-Rammohan Roy). The classical period is pretty clear with factual information. We don't need attribution. The modern period is also clear, when Hindu acquires the meaning of the follower of "Hinduism". The medieval period has various shades of meaning. I will first reorganize the section into three periods and then see what cleanup can be done. - Kautilya3 (talk) 17:18, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Go ahead. I will hold off editing this article for a few days and let you improve this article. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:03, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Image by @King muh

@King muh: please see MOS:IMAGES. Wikipedia articles are not random collection of images. The image you are adding is not relevant to this article. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 04:48, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

The word Hindu in Aramaic language texts from Nippur / Mesopotamia

@Kautilya3:, @Joshua Jonathan: There is an interesting paper, thanks to contributions of @Zezen in the Atharvaveda article, that brought to my attention the word Hindu being mentioned multiple number of times, in Indo-European context, in Aramaic language texts from Nippur. Robert Brown links Hindu and a few other terms (Hinduitha, Angiras-Agni) in the Nippur text to the Vedas and Indian context. Hindu occurs many times in the Nippur text, as can be verified here, at pages 25, 203 and 253 in Montgomery's translation. Brown mentions it too, with the statement, "In view of the fact that certain Indian names certainly occur in these [Nippur] incantations, Hindu in Nos. 24 and 40, and Hinduitha in number 38". Have you come across this before? BTW, the text is from 100 inscribed bowls discovered in Mesopotamia/Nippur, dated to be from the early centuries CE. This is an old source, so needs some more diligence to decide if this is WP:DUE for this article. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:19, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: never heard this before; interesting. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:28, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I have read the referenced literature on this and I'm extremely sceptical about Brown's assertions that there are Indian words in the Nippur bowls. Note that Montgomery himself doesn't say this, and the contexts of the original Nippur texts translated by Montgomery do not suggest anything to do with India, or that the transcription "hindu" has anything to do with India. It seems, rather, to be a proper name. (And -itha isn't a Sanskrit nominal suffix.) In the centuries BCE, the word "Hindu" did not refer to a religion or a people of a particular faith and is not found anywhere in Sanskrit or Vedic literature. It is likely that it was Alexander's troops who first popularized the word "Hindu", a Persian pronunciation of the Sanskrit word "Sindhu", the name of the river in Panjab/Sind that is today called the Indus (Sindhu/Hindu/Sind/Indus). These early uses of words derived from Sanskrit "Sindhu" referred to the people who lived in the region of the Sindhu river. In the surviving Sanskrit literature "Hindu" does not occur a millennium later, as a re-introduced loan word. "Sindhu" meaning "stream, river" does occur as the name of a remote place (see Mcdonnell's Vedic Index, v.2, p.450). Wujastyk 00:10, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

You are welcome, I am happy that I engendered a healthy debate and was not plainly reverted out of hand. FYI, many of the Artharvaveda and Avesta terms have proven (see wiktionary) cognates in Slavic languages: the fire: Atra - watra, and Agnis - ogień (Latin: ignis), Sapunta - święta (holy), Mazda - mądry (wise) etc. so these terms have additional mystic meaning for me, a Polish speaker. Zezen (talk) 19:53, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Atra (meaning fire) is neither Sanskrit nor in the Atharvaveda. It means "here". Nor is Mazda Sanskrit or in the Atharvaveda (there's no "z" in Sanskrit). Agnis is Sanskrit. Sapunta is not. Things like this can be checked very easily in the online version of the standard dictionary of Sanskrit by Monier-Williams. However, there are indeed many words in Polish and other Slavonic languages that are obviously cognate with Sanskrit words. See Pokorny's Dictionary of Indo-European Etymology (there may well be more up-to-date sources). The sense of enjoyment and wonder about the many cognate words is valid; I've heard it said anecdotally that Lithuanian is the nearest currently-spoken language to Sanskrit. Wujastyk 00:10, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

@Wujastyk: Thanks. Skepticism is good, but Brown's theory needs to be dismissed with evidence or competing more compelling alternative explanation. On -itha error, note it was written by whoever created the Nippur texts, not Sanskrit experts, centuries after Alexander's troops returned from Sind/Panjab/Indus with sugarcane reeds which made honey without bees. Agreed with the rest. @Zezen: Any follow up? Additional sources? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:59, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: Actually, I think my arguments against Brown's assertion are quite strong. And it isn't necessary to propose an alternative explanation when a theory is wrong. Sometimes we just don't know what these ancient authors meant. Often, in fact. Wujastyk 17:45, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I am not so sure why there is so much excitement about the early centuries CE mention of "Hindu" in Iraq, when the next door Persia had been using it for almost a millennium. - Kautilya3 (talk) 08:54, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

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The term Hindu in the Medieval era

@Ms Sarah Welch: Your vigilance on this article is appreciated, but after reexamining my edit, I still believe it is an improvement. Here is my attempt to convince you of that, and persuade you to undo your partial revert:

The broad point of the section is that Hindu meant different things to different people at different times. Pashaura Singh says that Persian-language texts from the Mughal Empire era lump together as Hindu all natives of India who did not convert to Islam. The quote from Jahangir's memoirs illustrates this by showing Jahangir calling the famous Sikh, Guru Arjan, a Hindu:

There was a Hindu named Arjan in Gobindwal on the banks of the Beas River. Pretending to be a spiritual guide, he had won over as devotees many simple minded Indians and even some ignorant, stupid Muslims by broadcasting his claims to be a saint. They called him guru.

— Jahangir, Emperor of Hindustan, Jahangirnama

Does including more of the primary source text make the point more clearly or more strongly?

Many fools from all around had recourse to him and believed in him implicitly. For three or four generations they had been pedaling this same stuff. For a long time I had been thinking that either this false trade should be eliminated or that he should be brought into the embrace of Islam. At length, when Khusraw passed by there, this inconsequential little fellow wished to pay homage to Khusraw. When Khusraw stopped at his residence, [Arjan] came out and had an interview with [Khusraw]. Giving him some elementary spiritual precepts picked up here and there, he made a mark with saffron on his forehead, which is called qashqa in the idiom of the Hindus and which they consider lucky. When this was reported to me, I realized how perfectly false he was and ordered him brought to me. I awarded his [Guru Arjan's] houses and dwellings and those of his children to Murtaza Khan, and I ordered his possessions and goods confiscated and him executed.

— Jahangir, Emperor of Hindustan, Jahangirnama

In contrast to the edit summary of your revert, the longer quote does not improve the neutrality of the section. It does not represent more fairly than the shorter "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint" (WP:DUE). If anything, it does the reverse, overemphasizing the not-a-Muslim meaning compared to the ethno-geographic meaning by devoting much more space to it and drawing attention with the block quote.

In the edit summary of your revert, you quoted "saffron on his forehead, which is called qashqa in the idiom of the Hindus". This phrase is especially problematic because:

• To draw support from if for Singh's statement would be original research.
• It is confusing to readers, who cannot be expected to know what a qashqa is, although they may infer that it's a bindi, tilak, or something similar.
• Jahangir saying that qashqa was a Hindu idiom is not the same as saying he considered the person making the mark a Hindu. If Jahangir had named a word for it in Turkish or in Arabic, it would not have meant that he considered Guru Arjun a Turk or Arab.
• Indeed, according to Thackston's annotation, qashqa is a Turkish word. It "may be what the Turks in India called such a mark, but it is not, as [Jahangir] puts it, in the 'idiom of the Hindus'".

Wikipedia's policy on original research cautions that primary sources must be used with care. Specifically, "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." The longer quote will not make sense to the reader without secondary analysis (Singh needed hundreds of words to explain what it meant). It is also off-topic, not relevant to the point.

If you are adamant about using a longer quote, I would urge stopping after "brought into the embrace of Islam", which at least ties in with Singh's "who did not convert to Islam".

References

--Worldbruce (talk) 06:54, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

@Worldbruce: Thanks for presenting your concerns on this talk page. Your claims are inconsistent with wikipedia policies. You allege original research, but there is no OR when we quote a source exactly. The scholarly translations and discussions are not primary sources, the original Jehangir text is the primary source. You allege NPOV issue; but NPOV is neutrality within the context of the source(s): a statement is not neutral if it does not summarize all important sides/sources, it is neutral if it does. If you allege "X is not NPOV", you must identify which side is not summarized. On Qashqa, Jehangir already defines it, it is clear what it meant in his time in Hindu context, and that suffices because this is an article on "Hindu", not an article on Jehangir, Turk, Arab, Qashqa, etc.

Your WP:Due point is a good one. Perhaps, we improve it by adding, rather deleting some parts. How about: [1] Keep it. The article is on "Hindu", the scholarly translated quote from Jehangir is indeed useful both that term was in use by then, and the 'quote exact' provides context and an explanation what the term meant in Jehangir's time. The quote is also useful as it provides a historical perspective on how a Hindu was perceived/defined/viewed in that era; [2] Add something more. You mention WP:Due with "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint". Indeed, if you know of any additional reliable sources, with a different viewpoint about what Hindu meant during the Mughal empire, or earlier, that would be most welcome addition to improve that section per WP:Due. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:50, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: I disagree with much of your response, so input from third parties would be welcome. I see that Kautilya3 has been active in a number of discussions on the topic, perhaps they can be persuaded to weigh the arguments. I have used italics when quoting something from your comments.

• You say The scholarly translations ... are not primary sources. That is, to me, a novel interpretation of what a primary source is. I agree that the original Persian text is a primary source, and that discussions of it (such as Thackston's preface and annotations) are secondary sources. The longer quote does not include anything from Thackston's preface or annotations.

I find no official guidance in Wikipedia on the question of whether translations of primary sources are themselves primary sources, only the opinion of Yaris678, in a section titled "Complex source categorisation", where they wrote cogently: "[A] translation of a primary source, such as Newton's Principia, is itself a primary source. However, the notes or commentary to that edition or translation, which present the editor's or translator's interpretation of the text, are secondary sources." This accords with my long understanding. A web search suggests that universities consider translations of primary sources to be primary sources (see Carleton, Princeton, Yale, Oxford).

• I am not unduly concerned about WP:DUE, whichever quote is used. I mentioned neutrality only because you invoked it in the form of WP:DUE as the only policy-based reason for reverting my shortening of the quote. In your edit summary you wrote the "saffron on his forehead, which is called qashqa in the idiom of the Hindus" is WP:Due. Now you seem to acknowledge the reverse, saying Your WP:Due point is a good one.

Either way, you are welcome to expand on the geographic meaning of Hindu, already represented in the article by the way Ibn Battuta used the term. For that purpose you might find more of Pashaura Singh's article useful. He writes on page 37, "the term 'Hindu' was first used by Achaemenid Persians to describe all those people who lived on or beyond the banks of the river Sindhu, or Indus. Thus the term 'Hindu' implied an ethno-geographical category. It was only under the Muslim rulers that the term began to acquire a religious connotation." For this he cites Harjot Oberoi's 1994 book, The Construction of Religious Boundaries.

• You twice say The article is on "Hindu". That is precisely my point. Three-quarters of the longer quote is not about what Jahangir meant by "Hindu", but about (according to secondary sources) how concerned he was with the growing political power of the Sikhs, how upset he was that Guru Arjan involved himself in the power struggle between him and his son, Prince Khusrau, and how he punished Guru Arjan for that. All of which is appropriate in articles about Jahangir, Prince Khusrau, Guru Arjan, or Sikhs, but has nothing to do with Hindu.

The use of the word Hindu in the shorter quote already shows that [the] term was in use by then and that Jahangir called the famous Sikh, Guru Arjan, a Hindu - the point that we are providing the quote to prove. The word Hindu appears once more in the longer quote, where Jahangir confuses the idiom of the Hindus with the idiom of the Turks (or the Persians, if Pashaura Singh is correct). But the reader isn't going to know from the longer quote that Jahangir is mistaken, so how exactly does the longer quote better explain what the term meant in Jehangir's time? What additional perspective does the longer quote provide regarding how a Hindu was perceived/defined/viewed in that era? I'm not trying to be obtuse, I just don't see how that's true.

According to Google Books, the word Hindu appears 41 times in Thackston's translation. Perhaps one of those uses would shed new light on how the word was used, but the longer quote does not. This is a question of staying on topic.

• You say there is no OR when we quote a source exactly. When one makes the statement "Jahangir, for example, called the Sikh Guru Arjan a Hindu pretending to be a saint:" and follows it with an exact quote from a primary source, the quote must, by policy, "make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." That is true of the shorter quote, but it would be original research to say that the longer quote in some way makes the point more clearly, completely, or strongly. It would require interpretation of what Jahangir meant in the longer quote. Granted, this objection depends on whether a translation of a primary source is itself a primary source, a point on which I'm happy to defer to consensus.

• The short and long quotes are both exact. I would prefer to characterize the choices as the to-the-point quote and the long-winded quote (the latter being something with which I'm quite familiar). The translation is copyrighted, so a further policy-based reason to favor the shorter quote is the policy on copyrighted material. The guideline for how to comply with the policy counsels against "excessively long" excerpts. One could argue that an excerpt longer than it needs to be to prove the statement where it is used is excessive.

--Worldbruce (talk) 18:36, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Dear both, thanks for pinging me. I agree that the quote delivers rather more than it promises. It appears as if it is meant to explain what "Hindu" meant to Jahangir, but in reality it is describing Jahangir's persecution of Guru Arjun. If the full quote is to stay, the text should describe why Jahangir, himself a son of a Hindu mother, was persecuting Guru Arjun. What is it that made him a "false guru" in Jahangir's eyes? I don't have access to Pashaura Singh's article, but this is an answer I would dearly like to know. (By the way, I don't regard persecution of "Hindus" as out of scope for this article. But, if that is what we are talking about, we should make it clear.) Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 19:46, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

@Worldbruce: Wikipedia policy is, "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." In this article, the interpretation comes from a secondary source by Pashaura Singh. The quote is exact. Indeed, both the quote is WP:Due, and your point on this talk page are WP:Due, each in a different context (for reasons see above). The "Persians, Sindhu" part is already in the article. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:30, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: The Mughal Empire and Jehangir related content just shows how the meaning of the term Hindu has varied and evolved over time. The Jehangir's source presents various aspects of it, "For three or four generations they ...", "...either this false trade should be eliminated or that he should be brought into the embrace of Islam" etc. – is all in the context of someone considered "Hindu" by Jehangir in his time. That goes with Hindu being a geographic/cultural identity, and a non-Muslim, in that era. The sentences that follow, with "a mark with saffron on his forehead", adds practices considered Hindu in those centuries. Your suggestions are helpful. Please feel free to add/revise. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:30, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

If the nomenclature of "Hindu" is all that we are after, then Worldbruce's edit seems quite appropriate. We can perhaps keep the last bit about saffron, which is being marked as a "Hindu" practice, but the rest of it can go.

On the other hand, I see that "Hindu" is being used to brand Guru Arjan here. Jahangir sees him as corrupting Muslims, including his own son, and he is trying to keep Muslims away from him. Calling him "Hindu" therefore has the effect of demanding him to stay away from Muslims. But this cannot be verified without a scholarly explanation from Pashaura Singh or other scholars. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:03, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I trimmed it a bit. Keeping the first part and then the "saffron" part, without the few sentences in between, makes it strange piece to read/understand. Please go ahead and trim it further if you feel there is a way to do so and retain readability. More summary from Pashaura Singh on Arjan and Jehangir may be better in the Jehangir article, but not here. I am reflecting on your other idea, as to how and where best to add the persecution of Hindus sub-section in this article. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:03, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

ps: For the record, I disagree with much of the confusing analysis by @Worldbruce on OR on DUE or UNDUE/ primary sources /etc, after reading Carleton/Princeton/etc links because their definitions and clarifications say something different. Every translation is an interpretation (1, 2, 3) , translations of the same ancient/medieval texts are almost always different (sometimes a lot), etc. I have skipped all this, per WP:FORUM, and we just need to focus on this article within the wikipedia policies. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:03, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I think it needs to be trimmed further, and I will take a shot at it. I found an online version of the paper [3]. Notwithstanding Jahangir's polemics in his memoires, the execution carried out was one that was fit for a saint. (cf. p.34) So, no importance can be placed on Jahangir's words.

Unfortunately, Pashaura Singh doesn't explore the meaning of "Hindu" that drew from the quote. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:00, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I take your point that the longer quote would not be off-topic in a different section of Hindu that explicitly covered persecution. I would not rush to broaden the article though, because persecution is already covered elsewhere, such as Persecution of Hindus, and duplication of too much detail would be undesireable. Glad you found a copy of Pashaura Singh's paper, it's an interesting read. --Worldbruce (talk) 05:10, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: I still think the "saffron" part is problematic for all the reasons outlined above, and cringe when you write things like practices considered Hindu in those centuries for which the Jahangir quote gives zero evidence, but at least the current quote is not as far over the line as the longest quote was. I can live with it and move on.

I'm going to add back the one internal link to Jahangir, the one to Thackston, and the named parameters for the quote's author and title. I hope your removal of them was incidental and we don't need to have a whole palaver about whether they're appropriate. Many readers won't know who Janhangir and Thackston are and are likely to want to know why they should care what they wrote. The author and title were displayed before I made my change, they just weren't using the recommended named parameters, so I assume your hiding of them was unintentional. --Worldbruce (talk) 05:10, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

@Worldbruce: I am fine with the wiki links you added. I am also fine with @Kautilya3's revision. A WP:Summary of the Persecution of Hindus article here would improve this article, and there is no need to duplicate that entire article here indeed. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:34, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Add Link to Great Tang Records

In the Etymology section, there's a reference to "Record of the Western Regions" which could be linked to the article Great Tang Records on the Western Regions.

2001:708:310:52:4ECC:6AFF:FE54:6F9A (talk) 00:04, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Hindoo

There's a relevant AfD discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hindoo. – Uanfala (talk) 23:32, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

The infobox

@Rajkumar 1 02: the article already has a dedicated section on demographics etc. What is the value of this infobox, which lately is witnessing unsourced OR and some revert warring (1 and 2)? Just because another article has an infobox, is not a good reason to do the same in this article. Lets discuss. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:04, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: The information in the infobox is not the same information that is in the demographics section of this article because the infobox lists the 20 countries with the most Hindus similar to on the page of Jews, Muslims, and Christians. This kind of an infobox also isn't unique to pages to religious groups. Articles about ethnic groups or nationalities such as Azerbaijanis, Indian people, Moroccans in addition to Pakistanis, Japanese people, and British people list more than 10 examples of "Regions with significant populations." Also, it's not unsourced or original research. Every country had its source noted as coming from this website. Kamalthebest (talk) 20:26, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Other wikipages are irrelevant (perhaps you should delete it elsewhere). That template was adding OR about zillion Hinduism traditions, which misleads. Further, the long list of estimated demographics, though indeed sourced to Pew Research, is better discussed in an NPOV manner from multiple sources in the dedicated article such as Hinduism by country. We already link to it. Picking a winning source, even if it is Pew Research or CIA, is OR/POV, just like picking a grid of faces for ethnic groups. The wikipedia community already discussed this sort of stuff in infoxboxes, and decided not to push POV or OR in infoboxes. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:24, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: Other wikipages on similar groups of people are not "irrelevant." It is a well-known pattern that articles regarding religious groups such as Muslims and Christians have infoboxes that give basic information on "Total population," "Regions with significant populations," religious denominations within the religion, as well as common "Languages" spoken where that religious group lives. I agree with your point that the infobox listed too many denominations but I didn't do that. See my original infobox here. I only listed the four largest denominations. I'm going to revert to this version unless you can give me a solid argument as to why this information should not be included. I don't understand that point about WP:NPOV because the infobox doesn't even make any statements, it's just statistics. And Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, reputable source. Kamalthebest (talk) 20:26, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kamalthebest:: Please don't threaten an edit war. Just look at the sources cited in Hinduism by country. The numbers there in many other sources and those in of Pew Research do not match. Picking one source as a winning source, when multiple reliable sources exist, or more reliable sources exist, is taking sides. Taking sides in such cases is POV-y. The best way to deal with this, is to discuss Pew and other sources in summary style section with NPOV, with link to the main article. That is what this article is currently doing. Further, it is you who needs to offer "a solid argument" as to why single sourcing the statistical data that excludes disagreeing statistical sources, and census data, is NPOV. You need to persuade why include a flawed infobox at all.

Beyond traditions, it is puzzling that you listed Indonesian as the second most prominent language, and some others, with this edit, as "predominant language of Hindus" for the infobox. You did so without sources. You also ignored the zillion other languages Hindus speak regionally. The Shiva image you chose is POV-y too. The infobox you created "is" loaded with OR and POVs. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:08, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: It's not POV-pushing to get all the values from a singular source. If we used different sources to get the information for populations of different countries, it would be inconsistent because India's information would be from 2015, Indonesia's info would be from 2013, Bangladesh's info would be from 2014, etc. That is why we need a singular source and Pew Research Center is the only source that lists the actual population of Hindus by raw number rather than by percentage. Information for other religious groups such as Christians, Muslims and Jews was already gathered from Pew Research so this isn't some random source I chose to push an agenda. I already mentioned that the information in the infobox is completely different to the main article because the main article does not list basic information on "Total population," "Regions with significant populations," religious denominations within the religion, as well as common "Languages" spoken where Hindus lives. I don't know why you keep bringing that up because it's not the same information. Further, I listed Indonesian as one of the languages Hindus speak because over 4 million Hindus live there and speak Indonesian. You claim I "ignored the zillion other languages Hindus speak regionally" when I explicitly did not ignore them. In the infobox, I intentionally included the phrase "other vernacular languages of the Hindu world" which would include regional dialects and such. And you claim the Shiva image is too POV-y? How? If you don't like it, change the image, don't delete the entire infobox. Kamalthebest (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kamalthebest: Sorry, it is POV pushing, if you take sides. The WP:NPOV page clearly states, "Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias." You are picking Pew over others, inappropriately. You also added Indonesian language without source. Bali Hindus speak Balinese language, and that is not same as Indonesian (if by that you mean Javanese language). 4 million is not even 1% of the total Hindu population, to list them second is strange. Picking Shiva image is again taking a side. Anyway, I don't want to argue with your opinions / wisdom / prejudices / ignorance. No unsourced POV-y, OR filled infobox, please. There is no value in a wrong data filled infobox (which ignores more accurate census data, and presents old inaccurate estimates). Feel free to take this to DRN / RSN / NPOV / ANI / etc boards. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:47, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: Once again, it is not POV-pushing to add information from a reliable, nonpartisan source such as Pew Research Center. It is inconsistent to add values from a different sources because different sources will come up with different values that aren't comparable with one another. It is not "editorial bias" to choose Pew Research over other sources. Pew Research is the only source that lists the actual population of Hindus by raw number rather than by percentage. I will change Indonesian language to Balinese language as per your suggestion. Calling me names like "prejudiced" and "ignorant" for attempting to add genuine information is not an argument. Wikipedia says to be WP:BOLD in adding information so I'm re-adding it and you can go to the "DRN / RSN / NPOV / ANI / etc boards" if you feel you're still upset. Kamalthebest (talk) 22:13, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kamalthebest: Don't selectively wiki-lawyer. Wikipedia does suggest be WP:BOLD, but it also suggests WP:BRD and don't WP:EDITWAR. You may want to read the neutral point of view policy page again. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 22:19, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: I am taking this to "dispute resolution" if you keep reverting genuine content. Is that ok with you? Kamalthebest (talk) 22:27, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

That is the right approach and I already suggested DRN etc above. You are welcome to, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 22:30, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Rajkumar 1 02:@Joshua Jonathan:@Quebec99:@NadirAli: In the meantime, do any of the other recent editors of this page have an opinion on this matter? Maybe a third opinion will help? Kamalthebest (talk) 23:54, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Third opinion may help. This is more of a core content policy issue, rather than a relative preference. Please consider the nav template I added to this article today as a possible good faith compromise. Also, please remember to sign your comments with four "~". Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:33, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: I don't consider adding the nav template to be a compromise because it doesn't hold nearly the same information as the infobox. If you want to add it, I'm fine with that, but the infobox should also be added. The nav template should take the place of an infobox. Kamalthebest (talk) 23:58, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Third opinion

Hi Sarah, I find much merit in Kamalthebest's arguments.

• Even though there is plenty of diversity across the Wikipedia (in quality, content, etc.), we should make an effort to make sure that similar pages have similar content. So drawing parallels with other religious group pages is perfectly fine.
• Using the Pew figures is also fine, because it is accepted as a neutral and authentic source. If there is variation in the figures from multiple sources, that can be discussed in the body of the article, and the infobox can summarise it in some way. Giving a range of figures is often the solution used.
• Other details can be certainly discussed (the Shiva image is certainly a problem), but I don't think we can maintain that putting an infobox is illegitimate in any way. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:43, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback, Kautilya3. I agree that the Shiva image could be changed. I am not knowledgeable enough on Hindu theology so I just chose a god that I recognized from the Hindusim page, but this could be changed to another picture of anything as long as it is associated with Hindus. It doesn't even need to be a divine figure. Kamalthebest (talk) 23:54, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: It is the dispute and edit warring in other similar articles, particularly ethnic groups of Africa (see Amhara people, etc) for example), that is a part of my concern. I had initially let the infobox remain, if you study the edit history. But, just like the Africa space articles, we have amazing unsourced POV pushing in the infobox. It will weaken this article if we mislead with Pew estimate for 2010, when better and more accurate 2011 census or other data is available. What is the value in presenting wrong data or unsourced OR in infobox? If demographics is what we want to present, how about we copy paste the table from Hinduism by country article, with embedded notes for NPOV, in relevant section below? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:59, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

(ps) On your suggestion, "similar pages have similar content".... why not make Christian and Muslim article similar to this (Hindu) and Buddhist article? Why assume the format of those articles are right? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:03, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch:@Kautilya3: The only edit-warring I see on the Amhara people page is the one that you initiated. Nobody else seems to have a problem with this. If someone starts to add unsourced info, remove it. I have no opposition to removing unsourced content that someone adds to the infobox. I agree with you there. However, if you want to remove sourced info in fear of someone potentially adding unsourced sometime in the future, I disagree. Also, you can't just copy an entire other article (Hinduism by country) into this article WP:Copying within Wikipedia. It will make this article way too long. The infobox is supposed to provide a summary, which is why only the 20 countries in the world with the highest Hindu population were included.

Also, don't start removing infoboxes from other pages to match this one. That's not how Wikipedia works. More content is better when it's sourced. The pages for Christians and Jews have had an infobox for years and no one has an issue with it but you. Kamalthebest (talk) 00:10, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kamalthebest: Please don't cast aspersions without studying the Amhara people article's edit history carefully. You are plain wrong about the edit warring history in its infobox. See 1 2 etc. You lecture about "sourced content" and "unsourced content", but you added a lot of stuff unsourced. Please don't do so. If you want to add top twenty summary only, you can do so in a table where you present multiple sources or add clarifying notes for accuracy. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: What you linked in reference to the Amhara people article is an example of someone adding unsourced content. That's not edit-warring. I said above that, "If someone starts to add unsourced info, remove it. I have no opposition to removing unsourced content that someone adds to the infobox. I agree with you there. However, if you want to remove sourced info in fear of someone potentially adding unsourced sometime in the future, I disagree." I'll say it again: I am fine with removing unsourced content. I did not add unsourced content. Here is my source. I linked a source when I added the infobox originally. Therefore, it was sourced content. Kamalthebest (talk) 00:36, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I would have no objection to using the data from the Hinduism by country article. But I suspect that it will be hard to maintain, with a variety of sources, which are prone to change periodically, causing edit-warring etc. But if you think the Pew data is vastly inferior, I guess we will have to punt it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Yes, using the data from the Hinduism by country article will be difficult to maintain. Pew research is not "vastly inferior." Look at their website. They are a very reliable source. Kamalthebest (talk) 00:37, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Pew report is now dated and inaccurate data. Pew Research is best used with caution, useful in some articles when presented along with or contrasted with the data in competing WP:RS. But to use only Pew's old estimates/projections in prominent infobox is to misinform, mislead. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:44, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: The map of this Hinduism on this page itself solely uses Pew Research data. So obviously it is legitimate. It's already in use. Kamalthebest (talk) 01:06, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Hinduism percent population

@Kamalthebest: Please do not edit my or another editor's response, by adding ping etc to what they write, like you did here, per WP:TPNO. Thank you for your cooperation. Images are illustrative. Looking at that image, which I now attach to this discussion, one doesn't read 800 or 900 million Hindus or 1 billion in the Indian subcontinent. It just illustrates that most Hindus are in the Indian subcontinent. Infobox has numbers, which makes it different, as explained above. Our issue is not with Pew Research, our issue is whether competing multiple WP:RS with better or different data exist. They do. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:20, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: I can't see if you have replied to me unless to ping me. That is why you need to ping me. Writing the "@" symbol does nothing. You need to write "ping" with my name so I get a notification you have replied. The information that was used for the map that is in this article, and that I linked to, and that you linked to uses information from the this Pew Research study. That Pew Research is the exact same one I used for the infobox. You said "Pew report is now dated and inaccurate data" and "Pew's old estimates/projections in prominent infobox is to misinform, mislead." Obviously, it is not outdated or misleading information because it is already being used in the article for the map. It also has numbers. Look at the legend to the left of the map. It has numbers. The infobox has numbers. Numbers for the map from Pew Research are ok, so numbers for the infobox should be ok. You said "our issue is not with Pew Research, our issue is whether competing multiple WP:RS with better or different data exist." The map uses information from Pew Research without referencing "competing multiple WP:RS with better or different data exist." Many pages use information from Pew Research without referencing "competing multiple WP:RS with better or different data exist." If numbers for the map from Pew Research are ok, numbers for the infobox should be ok. Kamalthebest (talk) 02:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

No, there is a difference between relative percentage and absolute numbers. Please don't edit my or other editor's comments, don't ping Kautilya3 by editing my comment. No need to ping me as well, the page is on my watch list. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:47, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

The infobox does not state "absolute numbers." It explicitly stated "(est. 2010)," which means estimation. Kamalthebest (talk) 02:53, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

See my concerns above. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 03:03, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I adressed your concerns above. Your claim seems to be that information from Pew Research is "old estimates/projections" that is "misinform[ation]" and "misleading" without referencing "competing multiple WP:RS with better or different data exist." I responded with how they are not "old estimates/projections" that is "misinform[ation]" and "misleading" because Pew Research data is currently being used in other articles without referencing "competing multiple WP:RS with better or different data exist." with no issue and they are used in this article with no issue in this map. Then you said that's different because the map used relative numbers while the infobox used "absolute numbers." But this is not true, since it explicitly stated "(est. 2010)," which means estimation. The only argument you have left is "WP:I don't like it," which may be true but not a genuine argument to remove the infobox. In addition, the only other person to comment in this thread was Kautilya3 who agreed with me, so you're outnumbered. In addition, nobody on any other article page that cites Pew Research has a problem with using info from that source without referencing "competing multiple WP:RS with better or different data exist" so community consensus is also on my side. Kamalthebest (talk) 05:00, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kamalthebest: Please don't misrepresent Kautilya3. Neither seek nor allege "community consensus on Kamalthebest's side" for violating wikipedia's core content policy on NPOV, Verifiability, Copyvio, Plagiarism, etc. That is WP:TE and not constructive. Kautilya3 agreed to using the data from the Hinduism by country article, and expressed concerns about this article's stability given multiple sources if we do so. You have not addressed my NPOV concerns with Pew old report versus alternate sources. Skip the "I don't like it" or "I like it" or etc wiki-lawyering. We have a reasonable compromise with the added new "Hinduism by country" template. I am also okay with the possible compromise wherein we expand the summary table on demographics that is in the later section of this article. with embedded notes for NPOV. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:30, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I am not misrepresenting Kautilya3. You are misrepresenting Kautilya3's views to make it seem like this is still a neutral argument. No one agrees with you. Kautilya3 explicitly said "I find much merit in Kamalthebest's arguments" and that "we should make an effort to make sure that similar pages have similar content. So drawing parallels with other religious group pages is perfectly fine." Kautilya3 also addressed your claim that using Pew values is POV-pushing by saying "Using the Pew figures is also fine." I addressed your claims that using values from Pew Research by citing this map which uses the exact same values with no NPOV issue. Adding the "Hinduism by country" template is not a compromise because I already said "it doesn't hold nearly the same information as the infobox." Most values from the "Hinduism by country" article page are estimations anyway. They just multiply the percentage of Hindus by the total population of the country, which is what Pew does. There are no more reliable source for raw numbers of Hindu populations. I am going to report you for edit-warring if you keep reverting my changes. Kamalthebest (talk) 21:58, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

To make my position clear, I have agreed with the addition of an infobox. I said I have no preference between the Pew data and the Hinduism by country data. MSW, who has studied the data in more detail, says there are problems with the Pew data. I defer to her judgement. Speaking of India, which I know about, the decennial census was held in 2011, and almost all India articles on Wikipedia use that. So, pre-2011 data will look out of place.

Procedurally, since you want to add new content, the burden is on you to achieve WP:consensus for your content. You can't keep reinstating it without achieving consensus. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:55, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I am okay with the census data for India and any other country if available post-2010. For these countries, no Pew 2010 estimates. Fo countries, where census data is not available, is there is a way to include multiple data in the infobox from different sources? How is infobox better than just an NPOV table in the appropriate section? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:22, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, apparently, the infoboxes are a lot more important than I would have expected them to be. A lot of readers (and editors!) seem to read the infoboxes and nothing else. That is the fact of life, and there is not much we can do about it.

I think it may be best to use the recent data for countries where it is available, and Pew data for the rest. I don't think there is a significant problem with using multiple sources. Most of those numbers are small anyway, and won't make much difference for the total. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:32, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

This is not a POV debate. Pew Research is a non-partisan source. As for the claim that MSW has studied the data in detail, I have too. I have studied the data and have come to the conclusion that it is reliable. Wikipedia standards state that Pew Research is non-partisan and reliable source that is already being used on multiple different pages with no issue and is already being used on this page with no issue. Can anyone direct me to a more reliable source for the number of Hindus in Qatar, for example? Kamalthebest (talk) 23:37, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Any example infobox that present multiple data, for a given parameter? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:44, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Can you clarify your question? I have no clue what you're asking of me. Kamalthebest (talk) 23:47, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

That is why I preface my replies with "@..."; @Kautilya3: What should we do when there are multiple sources for the same estimate (not census). Any example infobox that presents multiple data, for a given parameter? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:58, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Look at the infobox in the article for "Indian people," for example. Every country uses a different source but each number only has one citation because the data for a particular country comes from a single source. Does that make sense? Kamalthebest (talk) 00:06, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@MSW, estimates for political events almost always vary by source, and it is quite common to include a range, e.g., [4]. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:40, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Thanks. I will accept that compromise on "numbers as range", if and where reasonable quality sources disagree. On other parameters in infobox, what are your suggestions to ensure NPOV when we have conflicting sources? Would you recommend adding this to Buddhism article as well? We probably also need to clarify that Hindu/Buddhist numbers in the Pew report, for many Middle Eastern nations are not for citizens, that Hindus/Buddhist there do not have equal rights, and cannot practice Hinduism/Buddhism openly – that is what someone from Pew once told me, but I need to read the Pew report's fine print carefully to see what we can or cannot say per WP:V guidelines. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:12, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Firstly, no, we shouldn't add this style infobox to the Buddhism page. That page is for Buddhism (the religion), not Buddhists (the group). It doesn't apply there. That is why this is on the "Hindu" page and not "Hinduism." Second, your comment about the Middle-Eastern countries is POV-pushing. Pew Research documents the religions of everyone in the country, regardless of whether they are citizens or not. Have you read their [[5]]? For instance, Kuwait's census states that 99.98% of Kuwaiti people are Muslim while Pew estimates that 74.1% are Muslim because they counted non-Kuwaiti citizens too. Kamalthebest (talk) 02:24, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@MSW, "equal rights" can't affect the numbers. But, there could be distinctions based on residency status. Generally, the "permanent residents" of a country can be regarded as living there, irrespective of citizenship. But "temporary workers" can't be. I don't know if the sources are sufficiently discriminating about this. If there are serious issues about religion-based discrimination, they can be summarised in the body of the article. Regarding the Budhism page, I agree with Kamalthebest. The numbers belong in a Buddhist page, which doesn't exist yet. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:22, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I concur with you: citizens and permanent residents can be, but temporary workers can't be. A possible compromise may be to use your idea of range, include latest verifiable data in RS such as census on religious demographics, clarify the data or range with refn notes where appropriate. What are your suggestions for other parameters in infobox, such as "Predominant languages" etc, when sources disagree (of course OR is unacceptable)? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:39, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Regarding predominant languages, Sanskrit as the liturgical language needs to be mentioned. None of the others are connected with Hinduism in anyway. They are just languages that the people happen to speak in the areas where they live. So it seems best to omit the mention of languages altogether.

The "religions" field is difficult. At the moment, there are no subreligions active for Hinduism. But historically, there are Shavisim, Vaishnavism etc., which are now regarded as sects of Hinduism, and philosophical schools such as Advaita, Dvaita etc. These are worth mentioning. Then there are movements, such as Arya Samaj and Brahmo Samaj which might be vaguely active at this time. I don't know what do about the paramparas such as Nath panthis, Swami Narayan followers etc. They are too numerous and essentially tiny compared to the scale of Hinduism. In no way are they comparable to Shia-Sunni sects, or to Protestant-Chatholic divisions etc. So I would vote to omit the paramparas. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:58, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Kautilya3: Agreed. We may have a compromise here. How about we draft and reasonably tune an infobox in a sandbox somewhere, citing reliable sources, per the suggestions above, to prevent OR and disruptive edit warring in the live article? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 17:18, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Sure, please take the lead. (I am in the midst of some tedious RL work, but I can take a break every now and then). -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:15, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Draft. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 03:20, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Fourth Opinion

I was asked on my talk page for advice. I haven't been editing the article in question until now. I see that the original issue had to do with addition of an infobox and reverting or deleting the infobox, and that there are questions about the reliability of the numbers in the infobox. Is there agreement that the infobox with numbers of adherents by nationality and language is appropriate, as has been the case with other religions? Then is the question one of what numbers to use, and whether the numbers all have to come from one source? Robert McClenon (talk) 23:13, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Robert McClenon: Indeed, I have no objection to including demographics. My objections are: [1] Kamalthebest and others loaded it with OR (for evidence see discussion on Kamalthebest and others adding unsourced and undue content, above); I request that we comply with "no unsourced information and OR" guideline; [2] don't mislead with an infobox or table loaded with old estimates, present the best, most accepted numbers in WP:RS, for example from the 2011 Census (I agree with Kautilya3 on this); [3] if more than one RS has made an estimate, don't pick sides per NPOV, present all sides, unless verifiable sources have criticized one of the data or the estimator; [4] consider table instead of infobox for stability of this article (I have seen much edit warring over infobox numbers in many Africa-related articles, and perhaps we can semi indef this article to get around that problem). Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon:@Ms Sarah Welch: Let me address all the issues:

1. The data for the infobox was not OR. The data came from this 2015 Pew Research study and that was cited. This data is already being used on the pages for Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and this map on the exact same article page with no issue so it is reliable.

2. They are not old estimates. The study was in 2015 regarding populations in 2010. That was less than a decade ago. If there is a more recent source, then we can add that instead, but that does not warrant removing the infobox completely.

3. Picking Pew Research is not breaking NPOV because it says on its website that it is a "nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world."

4. A table's format is already in use on the Hinduism by country article. I don't want to copy and paste the exact same information. Infoboxes are meant to be short summaries. In addition the infobox holds information besides population such as languages and denominations, which would need separate tables. All in all, it's a waste of space to separate all these into their own tables. That is the whole point of an infobox. To clearly and simply give a summary about a group of people. This is not a unique concept. Other groups of people have similar infoboxes. Look at the "Indian people" article for example. Kamalthebest (talk) 23:46, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kamalthebest: you did add unsourced content and OR in "Predominant spoken languages:" and other parameters. You also misunderstand NPOV. Simply because a source claims to be bipartisan, does not mean it is NPOV for wikipedia. NPOV issue in wikipedia article arises when multiple sources exist, and have different views, sides or estimates. In this case, they do. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:53, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I think it is you who misunderstands NPOV. This is from the article on WP:NPOV: "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." This is fair as there is no editorial bias in a statistics. It's just numbers. As for the language section, it's just the most predominantly spoken languages in the top 5-6 countries that were in the infobox. You can go the article for "India," for example, and go to "languages" under the infobox section. Kamalthebest (talk) 00:04, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

More Commentary

First, User:Kamalthebest, please continue any discussion here, not on my talk page. Second, I think that both of you understand neutral point of view, and that you disagree over how to apply it. Third, since India has been mentioned, as it should be, since it is the world's largest Hindu-majority country, I will mention that disputes about India are subject to India-Pakistan discretionary sanctions, which provides an expedited procedure for sanctions against editors who edit disruptively or stubbornly. At this point, I haven't seen any of the conduct for which discretionary sanctions are appropriate, so I am just advising everyone to continue to be civil, and to discuss matters reasonably, and to avoid edit-warring. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:28, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for clogging up your talk page with this issue, Robert McClenon. I appreciate your advice. Thanks! Kamalthebest (talk) 02:24, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: Thanks. Please note that I feel @Kamalthebest is misrepresenting on your talk page, about what is happening here. I have refrained from posting there, since we have an active discussion here already. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:35, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Ms Sarah Welch - I didn't rely on his representations on my talk page (and I don't think that you think that I did), and my advice is still that this issue may call for a Request for Comments, and I redirected the discussion here. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:08, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: Agreed. RfC, one that is proper, may be the way to go. As a preemptive clarification, we can have no improper RfC wherein Copyvio, Plagiarism, OR, NPOV, BLP and other core wikipedia policies are suspended for this or another article? FWIW, with Kautilya3's efforts above, we may be close to a compromise. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:16, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kamalthebest: you have made repeated attempts to add unsourced information to this article, about "Predominant spoken languages", as in here1, here2, here3, here4 over the last few days, despite my repeated request that you do not add unsourced content / OR. I explained why this is wrong above, on this talk page. Yet you added it back again today. It is disruptive for you to keep adding Indonesian as the second most predominant spoken language of Hindus, because it is plain wrong and your OR. Hindus in Bali Indonesia (~4 million) speak Balinese language, and they constitute less than 0.5% of Hindus worldwide. You also added Malay, in your edit warring, but Malay is also a minor language of Hindus (most Malaysian Hindus speak Tamil as their first language). There are many other languages that more Hindus speak than your OR. Once again, please do not edit war by inserting such OR to this article, particularly after repeated reminders. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:35, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I already addressed the issue with language above: "As for the language section, it's just the most predominantly spoken languages in the top 5-6 countries that were in the infobox. You can go the article for "India," for example, and go to 'languages' under the infobox section." It is not OR. Address my comments above on Kuwait regarding Pew data vs. census data. Kamalthebest (talk) 02:54, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

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Hindu as a cultural, ethnic or religious identifier

@NadirAli: The sources and the main article state Hindu to be "cultural, ethnic or religious identifier". Per WP:Lead, "or" is more appropriate, not "rather than" as lead summary. Please do not edit war, and explain your concerns and sources. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:02, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

To editor Ms Sarah Welch: there was no such religion "Hinduism" before the 18th century, but I will edit in compromise.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 23:19, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

NadirAli: you are free to believe in whatever you wish to, but your opinion / prejudice / wisdom is no basis for this article. We need to stick to RS. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:23, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

(ps: I added another WP:RS and some text; On Hinduism being a recent English word, that makes no difference, just nature of English language history; add cut-paste from Talk:Hinduism) Christianity is a 14th-century word, while the word Islam came to mean a religion in the 19th-century (it meant 'submission'), it was called Mahometry (15th century), Muhammadism (17th century), Islamism (18th century)... according to Douglas Harper. The term Boudhism (later revised to current Buddhism) was coined in 1801, Tauism (now Taoism) in 1839, Confucianism in 1862, according to Lionel Jensen, a professor in East Asian Studies; (fwiw, Yong Chen agrees). It is not mainstream scholarship, and rather fringe, to suggest or imply that just because these English words were coined then, therefore Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, or etc did not exist before 19th or another century, or what existed prior was rather this or that. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:01, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I've added a source.

To editor Kautilya3: and others, please check the source I have added. There was no such title as "Islamic state of Pakistan" in 1947, not ever. It was Dominion of Pakistan and later Islamic Republic of Pakistan, but no such title as "Islamic state of Pakistan" was used before. Understand that this contradicts all other articles that discuss the country's history from 1947 to 1956 and 1971--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 19:02, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

NadirAli: Kautilya3 may have additional comments. I see the old version as sort of ok, because page 99 of Peter van der Veer source states, "Nevertheless, when Pakistan emerged from the independence struggle, it was declared to be an Islamic state". "Sort of ok", but not "completely ok", because "Islamic state of Pakistan" may inadvertently imply more than what the source is stating (ISIL-like?). I have reworded it to merge in the Kautilya3 version, but the sentence reads a bit clumsy now. Kautilya3: please check and revert to old version or another better version. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 19:28, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

@NadirAli: whether Pakistan was a Dominion (pseudo-colonial entity) or not is completely irrelevant for the purposes of this article. Scholars regard Pakistan as a "Muslim state" from its inception till Zia ul-Haq's time, after which it became an "Islamic state". These terms are used to describe the ideological underpinnings of the state, and they have nothing to do with the official names. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:55, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

But User:Kautilya3, it's not factually correct. You can say that from 1956 onward, but anything before that is just not true. I am okay with putting "Muslim majority state" if that works for you. "Islamic state" is incorrect and misleading.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 01:02, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

NadirAli: We need to stick with the phrasing in the WP:RS. What you feel is "not factually correct" is irrelevant, what matters is what the source(s) are stating. For additional sources, see 1 (pages 49-50), 2 (pages 28-37, Introduction chapter), etc Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:48, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

But the source I put in does not say that/ The Dominion of Pakistan existed in 1947, the Islamic republic of Pakistan came later.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 04:04, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Please see the cited WP:RS. I am removing the Epitome Books source you added, as it is not a reputable publisher. Do you have any evidence of it being peer reviewed, non-WP:QUESTIONABLE? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 04:34, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

The sources are not exactly the problem. NadirAli is talking about what it was called, whereas the sources you have cited describe what it was. He doesn't seem to understand the difference. This might be an instance of WP:CIR.

NadirAli, you need to stop WP:edit warring, read the sources that have been provided, and achieve consensus before you start modifying the content. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:35, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

To editor Kautilya3:, I did not edit war. I started the discussion for a reason. Pakistan was not an "Islamic state" it had no state religion at the time of independence, that's why I support "Muslim majority state" instead.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 00:25, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Any deviation from the recommended procedure of WP:BRD constitutes edit warring. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 07:30, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Hindu and it's relation with caste

Important part of Hindu identity is his caste which defines his social standing. Absolutely no content on that Adaptor40 (talk) 16:06, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 May 2018

2405:204:E18B:4639:6431:3909:267C:E848 (talk) 04:10, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

 Not done. No edit request made. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 07:12, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Etymology

@Ms Sarah Welch and Joshua Jonathan: recently I ended up researching for the Hindustan article and consulted new HISTRS that weren't known to me earlier. It appears that "Hindu" as an ethonym is just as old as "Hidustan" (like "India") was a geonym. The geonyms arose from the ethonym, not the other way around. Or, put more plainly "Hindustan", "Hind" were the lands inhabited by "Hindus", not the other way around. Originally, the Persians faithfully called "Hindu" whatever the Indians called "Sindhu". We know two instances, Saptha Sindhava and the Sindhu country. (The later day Sanskrit meaning of "Sindhu" as a large body of water was probably unknown to the Persians. The original meaning of "Sindhu" had nothing to do with water. The Persians probably had their own name for the Sindhu river. We see it being called Darya or Mihran in the 7th century.) So the idea that "Hindustan" meant the land beyond the Indus is not evidenced.

From the Sindhu country, the term got extended to the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia because these lands were inhabited by "Hindus". We don't know when this ethnic meaning arose, but clearly between 262 CE (when Hindustan meant Sindh) and 700 CE (when we see "Hindu" being cultrual Indian). Here is a source that verbalises this well:

For the Muslims, the notion of 'Hind' and 'Hindustan' initially signified an entity, not in a geographical or political meaning, but in the religious sense of a land where idolatrous Hindus lived (Wink 1999:319-20).

I think we need to revise this article as well as Hinduism in the light of this information. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:27, 7 November 2017 (UTC) Amended. Kautilya3 (talk) 06:19, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

References

Indeed! Please go ahead and update, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 11:25, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Upper Indian subcontinent?

NadirAli, sorry to see that your edit warring continues. Instead of polemical "How so? All the other sources state as such", why don't you cite such sources? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 06:16, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

To editor Kautilya3:, I am not edit warring. Even the simplest edits you dislike you term as "edit warring". I'll add the citation in the article if you like.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 16:33, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

NadirAli, Only one source? You implied you had many, when you said "other sources". But still, you better provide a quotation from this book, because I don't see anything called "upper Indian subcontinent". -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:04, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Kautilya, you now ask for more sources when I have provided multiple. If you seem unhappy with an edit just because you personally don't like it, then I can't do anything.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 21:18, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

NadirAli, I am still waiting for a quotation that verifies your edit. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:58, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

To editor Kautilya3:, if I gave you a quotation, you'd ask for something else, so what's the point? Why not we work on something else instead of fighting over something so small.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 05:26, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Looks like you had dreams of giving me quotations. In real life, you didn't. So, please do it now. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 07:16, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Jahangir on Guru Arjan

Worldbruce trimmed the Guru Arjan quote here, stating trimmed quote from Jahangirnama to what is essential in this context - how Jahangir used the term Hindu".

Today Sanjoydey33 reinstated the original quote saying "The current version of the quote does not reflect the point that non-Muslims are called as Hindu who needs to be converted to Islam. The full-quote reflects the view of Jahangir towards Hindus and therefore deserve the mentions here. The point is not to demonstrate whether Arjan Dev was false saint or not, rather in which sense he was mentioned as Hindu with the meaning of non-Muslim".

I am reverting the edit. Sanjoydey33 needs to make his case here and achieve WP:CONSENSUS. Pinging Ms Sarah Welch and Joshua Jonathan. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:37, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 10:54, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Sanjoydey33's long version of the quote doesn't achieve the goal of the section or that expressed in their edit summary any better than the short version. --Worldbruce (talk) 12:02, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

I would go even further and say that discussion over the Jehangir quote, which IMO is just serving as a coatrack for the usual on/off-wikipedia Hindi-Muslim battles, is a red-herring and the quote can be safely excluded altogether. Even the short version of the quote is not quite relevant to the section in that it is more illustrative of Jehangir's attitude towards non-muslims rather than simply illustrating his use of the term 'Hindu' as a synonym for non-Muslim Indians. The latter is what is pertinent to the section on "Mediaval era usage" of the term 'Hindu' (the former is relevant to history of Hinduism, which is dealt with in other articles).

Relatedly, the current version of the section is missing the point that under Mughal rule the term transitioned from (mainly) a geographic grouping to having explicitly religious meaning. Quoting from Pashaura Singh's article that is being cited:

...Thus the term `Hindu' implied an ethno-geographical category. It was only under the Muslim rulers that the term began to acquire a religious connotation. As such, it came to be used by the Muslims to refer to the native peoples of India who did not convert to Islam. In Persian writings, therefore, Sikhs were regarded as Hindu in the sense of non-Muslim Indians.

I have bolded the part I think needs to be (paraphrased and) added to the sub-section; it would be the natural point to make after the existing sentence, "The term Hindu [as used by Ibn Batuta] is ambivalent and could mean geographical region or religion." However, before doing so can someone check page 16 of this book that Singh cites to make sure we reflect the original source accurately? Abecedare (talk) 19:42, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

OK, I looked up the Oberoi book and its exact statement is:

Therefore, at one stage the word Hindu as an ethno-geographic category came to englobe all those who lived in India, without ethnic distinction. It was only under the Muslim rulers of India that the term began to have religious connotations. But it was not until colonial times that the term 'Hinduism' was coined and acquired wide currency as referring collectively to a wide variety of religious communities, some of them with distinct traditions and opposed practices

This is consistent with the existing section and the distinction I was trying to draw above between the term's use during the pre-Mughal Muslim rule and the Mughal period, was just me over-reading a source.

Long story short: ignore the second half of my previous comment i.e., starting from "Relatedly...". :) Abecedare (talk) 20:19, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Wow, I don't know how you found this book so quickly! But I think the first sentence of Oberoi above is complete nonsense, and self-contradictory. "Hindu" was the ethnic category. I have no idea what he means by "without ethnic distinctions". India ("Hindia") was named after the Hindus, not the other way around. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:16, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

The context for that sentence is "The term was first used by the Achaemenid Persians to describe all those people who lived on or beyond the banks of the river Sindhu or Indus. Therefore, at one stage the word Hindu as an ethno-geographic category came to englobe all those who lived in India, without ethnic distinction." (see preview here). In that context, I read the "without ethnic distinction" to simply mean that ethnic classification of people within the "Indus region" was not a factor in who the Persians, Greek etc considered to be a 'Hindu'. That sounds ok, right? Abecedare (talk) 15:54, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, in 500 BC, if there were any ethnic distinctions among the Indians, they would have been completely unrecognizable to Persians and Greeks. A dialect continuum operated in India, and still does. I linked to India (Herodotus) above, which shows that the Persians and Greeks had absolutely no clue about the geography of India. What they did recognize was the ethnicity of Indians ("Hindus"). The term for India in Herodotus is Hindike chore, which is often translated as the "Indian land", but I think it is more accurately the "land of Hindus". Hindike appears to be the adjective of Hindu. See this dictionary lookup. (You need to click on the "LSJ Middle Liddell" buttons to see the meanings.)

So, "Hindu" was not an ethno-geographical term. It was a pure ethnic term. But almost all religious studies scholars get it wrong. I have no idea why. I started complaining about it in the "#Etymology" section above. I am still looking for a source that gives the facts in clear-cut terms before I make revisions. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:58, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Bringing it back to the current discussion, since "Hindu" was a purely ethnic term (including its cultural and religious aspects), it made perfect sense for the Muslims stop calling people "Hindu" when they converted to Islam. The conversion typically involved changing culture, language, dress, cuisine and everything else. "Geography" never entered the picture.

The first person who might have thought of geography might have been Amir Khusrau, who called himself a "Hindustani Turk" and his language "Hindawi" etc. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:13, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

• I agree with Kautilya3 completely that the term "Hindu" was used by persians Avesta and Greek as purely ethnic sense. But, lets come back to the main point where we were talking about Jahangir's comment on guru Arjan Dev. The main purpose of the quote is to support two points: how Jahangir used the term Hindu for all Indians who did not convert to Islam and how he referred Sikhs as Hindu. (although how about the Buddhists? but, let not digress.) I am considering your first paragraph for argument because you yourself agreed that the later paragraphs are not that relevant to the topic. I do not want to indulge on Hindu-Muslim fights as you mentioned in the first paragraph and I think the quote does not. Let not colorize every medieval historical event to Hindu-Muslim fight. There were several atrocities done by Muslim kings in the medieval era such as forced conversions, which almost all of current Muslims will not buy as a behavior of true Muslim and tenet of Islam. But, I do agree with Abecedare that the persecution of Arjan Dev may be related to the history of Hinduism beyond the scope of this article. But, I still think the beginning part of the quote describing Arjan dev and Jahangir's attitude towards him for conversion is relevant to demonstrate the point Hindus are those who did not convert to Islam and the middle part of the quote about how Koshrow found Arjan with the saffron mark to identify him as Hindu. To respect Abecedare's point, I'm planning to remove the last part of the quote, where execution of Arjan Dev is mentioned. I hope that's ok now. Sanjoydey33 (talk) 03:13, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Abecedare: A part of the quote is relevant, as it confirms the term "Hindu" had (some) meaning, significance and was in vogue in the early 17th-century. What that meaning was, whether it was correct, what the implied hues and shades of the term were, is open to scholarly debate, particularly when the evidence is examined through the colored spectacles of modern era political and theological premises. Replacing the short version of that quote with a short interpretation weakens the article, because the reader becomes aware of the modern interpretation of the evidence instead of the evidence itself. However, I do not support a complete quote reinstated by Sandoydey33, but support the shorter version such as the Kautilya3/Worldbruce/older trimmed version of the quote. After due consideration of what Sanjoydey33 writes above, I still do not understand the relevance of the following to this article, "When this was reported to me, I realized how perfectly false he was and ordered him brought to me. I awarded his [Guru Arjan's] houses and dwellings and those of his children to Murtaza Khan, and I ordered his possessions and goods confiscated and him executed."

Kautilya3: Like Abecedare, you make some fine and thoughtful comments. Hindu was indeed not a geographic term in Mughal or Delhi Sultanate period, because they obviously knew that the Muslims in their sultanate or empire lived in the same geography as those they were calling the Hindus. The usage of the term Hindu had a Muslims and non-Muslims context when used by Muslim rulers. One of your comment is baffling though. You write, "conversion typically involved changing culture, language, dress, cuisine and everything else". It is baffling because it implies conversion changed pretty much everything. There was change no doubt, such as "no pork" and "more non-vegetarian" cuisine, burqa for dress, etc. But, "pretty much everything" is odd, is going too far. I would be interested in reading any WP:RS you might have on this, particularly if it is related to Hindu / Buddhist / Jain / Sikh / Christian / Jewish context. My interest would include any WP:RS you may have in this context directly about the Quran, the Hadiths or from North Africa, West Africa, Horn of Africa, South Asia or southeast Asia. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:47, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

I still would prefer my version (surprise! surprise! :)), which leaves out the quote altogether, but if other editors here would like to include it as colour/period-context, I too would prefer Kautilya's condensed version.

A technical note not related to the quote: the current version of the article says, "term Hindu appears to refer to the people of India who had not converted to Islam" which is slightly sloppy. It should be, "people of India who had not accepted Islam" or "native people of India who had not converted to Islam", because by the current definition Jehangir would be regarded a Hindu! Note that Pashaura Singh is careful in his phrasing to avoid this mistake. I am fine with either amendments I have listed, or anything equivalent. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 19:03, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

As far as the Jahangir quote is concerned, I prefer no quote, like Abecedare. I think the Jahangir statement is a political statement speaking in code and it is in appropriate to display it. Neither is it necessary for this article. The Worldbruce version is the maximum that I can accept.

As for what "conversion to Islam" meant (I am not speaking of other religions), I don't know of any proper study made of it. What I said is based on myriads of disparate sources and situations. For example, Bengali Muslims were considered practically "Hindus" by Indian Muslims until the beginning of the 20th century when suddenly the tyranny of numbers took over. Kashmiri Muslims were not considered proper Muslims even till the time of independence. Copland says rather perceptively that the Muslim Leaguers probably did not even want the Kashmiri Muslims to be part of their new state. As for the Bengali Muslims, we know what happened to them. These people might have changed their religion, but they didn't change "everything else". So they weren't Muslim enough.

One good place where the cultural differences between Hindus and Muslims is documented is Vidyapati's Kirtilata. You can read a short description here: Lutgendorf, Philip (1997). "Imagining Ayodhya: Utopia and its Shadows in a Hindu Landscape". International Journal of Hindu Studies. 1 (1): 19–54. JSTOR 20106448.. Perhaps there are longer descriptions available elsewhere. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:13, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Conversion of Bengali Muslims were a gradual process. While the initial Bengali Muslims were very similar to Bengali Hindus until the 19th century, but gradually Muslim missionaries Islamized the culture of Bengali Muslims. For example, when a person converted to Islam, first they change their name to Arabic from Bengali, then food habits, clothes (dhoti vs. more lungi),etc. Some notable movement of such Islamization of Bengal started during the British era, e.g., the Khelafat movement supporting Wahabists of Arabia, Faraizi Movement lead by Haji Shariatullah in current Bangladesh. The current district of Shariyatpur is named after him, who preached among Muslims to be more authentic to Islamic teachings and abandon local practices like worshipping syncretic Hindu-Muslim deities like Satya-Pir, ola bibi, etc, followed by impositions during Pakistani period, who even proposed to write Bengali in Arabic or Persian scripts and banned Rabindra sangeet, the most popular music genre. In brief, conversion to a certain religion does not mean simply changing the belief system, rather changing way of life and culture altogether. Sanjoydey33 (talk) 22:46, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

I think we all are agreeing to a consensus that we can remove the last part of the quote where Jahangir's execution of Guru Arjan Dev, which is same as Worldbruce's version. I agree on this point not because of its political nature, rather this is more related to the history of Hinduism than the identity of Hindus, as Abecedare mentioned originally. Kautilya3, Ms Sarah Welch and sanjoydey33 agreed to this version, although Abecedare prefers no quote. However, I described point-by-point argument why I think the first few lines are relevant to the topic, while I agreed to delete the last two lines because of its political nature (Worldbruce's version). Unless Abecedare comes up with counter-argument to this, I am restoring Worldbruce's version for now, but open to further suggestions. Sanjoydey33 (talk) 22:46, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the first book by Rafiuddin Ahmed in Bengali Muslims#Bibliography covers the Islamic acculturation of Bengali Muslims. It is a good case study because this acculturation happened in recent times, and so it is well-documented. Prior to this, the Bengali Muslims were culturally the same as Bengali Hindus, more or less. (Writing from memory, it has been several decades since I read the book).

Re-reading Sanjoydey's posts and edit summary, I think we are better off removing the Jahangir quote. The misconceptions he derived from it are precisely what we don't want. Jahangir, the son of Emperor Akbar and Jodha Bai, was hardly out to "persecute Hindus". He was quelling what he saw as a rebellion by his son and his presumed "Hindu" collaborators. The quote is misleading and should not be used. It is off-topic in any case. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:32, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Abecedare/others: That was sloppy indeed. See this version, and please wordsmith/revise it further. Neither "accepted" nor "converted", or for that matter "rejected" or "refused to convert", feels appropriate there because all those words are a bit loaded and do not reflect the context therein and the sources such as the professor Pashaura Singh's text. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:40, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Kautilya3, I hope you understand that pedagogy has limited influence on one's POV. There have been numerous books written on Aurangzeb's bigotry. Notable ones by Sarcar, Jadunath. Rioter 1 (talk) 05:02, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Hindu a sanskrit word, not Persian as claimed.

Indu, that which means bright drop,in sanskrit.

In reference to Chandra, the moon, blessing this location with the soma juice / elixir.

The H is silent. As seen in vedic mantras. eg. Om hraam hreem hrom.

Hraam is said as raam, hreem is pronounced as Reem and hrom as rom. Kajan Lakhan (talk) 03:45, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Therefore, pronounce Hindu as Indu. Which is originally sanskrit. And logical India follows.( not Hindia). Indu from India. Kajan Lakhan (talk) 03:53, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 23 December 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Moved per the discussion below. Kudos to editors for your input, and Happy New Year! (nac by page mover) Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  18:14, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

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Hindu → Hindus – Per WP:PLURAL: "Articles on people groups" are acceptable in plural form. There was recent consensus to move Christians from the singular to the plural form. This RM is therefore intended to achieve WP:CONSISTENCY for religious groups across the project. See also Talk:Muslim. Sangdeboeuf (talk) 09:02, 23 December 2018 (UTC) --Relisted. Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  15:26, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Note. Relisted because of concern noted below. Members of WikiProjects Hinduism, India and Nepal have been notified of this request. This article is move-protected (the redirect "Hindus" is not). Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  15:37, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support. WP:PLURAL obviously applies here. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:27, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support. As per nom. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:13, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
• Not sure in this case. A fairly substantial portion of this article is about the term "Hindu" rather than the group of people. Dekimasuよ! 09:29, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
  • That's really not so different from Christians. In any case, the term refers to the group of people, and the etymology portion could conceivably use the plural form just as well as the singular. Ngram stats show the ratio of use at about 1:2. (And I think we have to assume that a great many instances of Hindu there will be in compound terms such as Hindu temple, Hindu deities, etc., which wouldn't be specifically pertinent here.) —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:23, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

• True as far as the actual article now at Christians. In both cases there appear to be two separate focuses in the article: the term and the group. In that case, I only commented on not deciding what to do with the article based upon whether or not links would have to be fixed. I might be inclined to think they should be split, but that would create even more trouble with keeping the links straight unless one was relegated to having an unfortunate disambiguator like "(term)". Dekimasuよ! 20:12, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

• Comment. 'Hindus' redirects to Hindu; so what is the actual net gain from moving this page? It just seems like an attempt to justify the 'Christians' move, which looks to be based on blindly treating WP:PLURAL like a solid policy, instead of the guideline that it actually is. Cesdeva ^(talk) 21:00, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
  • The gain is in overall consistency between similar articles' titles, which is part of article titling policy. See also Muslims and Jews. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 05:58, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support per nom--Binod Basnet (talk) 22:36, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
• Wikipedia articles are supposed to be about entities, Wiktionary is for words. An article that starts with "[AT] refers to" rather than "[AT] is (or are)" is potentially problematic. While my personal preference is "Hindu people", I think this move is an improvment, so support. Guettarda (talk) 15:04, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes, the lead sentence needs cleaning up, although for the record, encyclopedia entries can also be about words and phrases. Whether this article should be mainly one or the other depends on what published sources choose to focus on. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:54, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
• No objection. Dekimasuよ! 15:13, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support: per WP:PLURAL. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 01:49, 5 January 2019 (UTC))

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

British-bashing

Ms Sarah Welch, it is fine to remove Ram Bhagat's British-bashing. But why retain Gauri Vishwanathan's British-bashing, which looks even more ridiculous? She wants separate laws for all those groups, who were supposedly mistakenly included among "Hindus"? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:40, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3: I just saw the lead earlier. The inappropriate bashing there stood out. I didn't have the time to go through every line of this article again, check what else has changed from entropy-edits over the last year or more. Which specific summary from Gauri Vishwanathan's source are you referring to? I did a quick check after reading your msg. I see two lines sourced to a Vishwanathan source published by Princeton Uni Press. Am I missing something? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:12, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I boldle deleted it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:42, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3: Noting my support for various reasons. While I do not want to come across as preaching to the choir, I state the following for the archives: I do not consider a summary of [painful] facts that are sufficiently supported by multiple independent peer-reviewed sources as "bashing", and consider it a part of being WP:Comprehensive. I consider bashing as inserting a POV-y summary which imputes motives to a people/ethnic group/religion/person/etc when either the cited source does not state so, or when a majority of relevant sources do not state so, or when relevant sources state something different. Often the editor who adds such content does not add a source, or skips citing the page numbers [gaming our AGF instincts], or uses questionable/unreliable sources. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 11:22, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, I thought Gauri Vishwanathan's accusation of "leveling Hindus" through the application of Dharmashastras was out of place. This was in 1772, about 20 years after the Battle of Plassey, when "Hindus" and Muslims were the only groups known to the Company. But, clearly, the Dharmashastras were quite impractical. So how far they got enforced is anybody's guess. Later on, the "Hindu law" became the customary law, whereas the Muslims campaigned for the Sharia and got it. So there should be no reason for anybody to complain about the "Hindu law" leveling "Hindus", except that the branding as "Hindu" might be distasteful to some.

Anyway, we want to focus on the meaning of "Hindu". So all this discussion of the Hindu law is quite unnecessary. By the way, the Anglo-Hindu law page is not a very good shape at all. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:48, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Please add missing information

According to pew research Hindus are least educated reIigious group with 41% Hindus having no formal schooling. Sources https://m.huffingtonpost.in/2016/12/14/hindus-least-educated-religious-group-in-the-world-pew-survey_a_21627752/ https://www.pewforum.org/2016/12/13/hindu-educational-attainment/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2405:204:311A:D8EE:E1B:8071:6D9:95B0 (talk) 09:45, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Hindu in Rigveda

I would like to know where exactly it is mentioned in Rigveda, the term 'Hindu' and 'Hindustan' given that fact that these are actually Persian words of corrupted Sanskrit origin. The prefix 'Hin' or 'Hina' in Vedic language and Sanskrit signifies 'inferior' or 'lesser' . Does that mean the Rigveda now endorses the fact that followers of Vedas are inferior ?

The article simply gives a vague reference to the Persian word 'Hindu' by citing Brhaspatyaga in Rig Veda without either giving a link or exact scriptural reference.

This is a sign of spurious article . Is it not ? I wonder what the admins are doing. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 04:04, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done. I removed it. Thanks for pointing it out. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:11, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you so much Kautilya3 for responding. There are other wiki admins who still don't respond in an apt and timely manner. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 15:22, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Plz change the range of Bangladesh's hindus in the region with significant population

The the demography range of Hindus is 13,790,000-17,000,000 with reference of 2011 and 2016 year in the wikipedia. The 2019-20 estimation of Hindu population of Bangladesh is 25 million approx. Below is the reference of my claim-:

Conclusion: So plz change the (x) 13,790,000-17,000,000 into (y) 17,000,000-25,000,000 as per as reference.

Semi-protected edit request on 24 June 2021

Plz change the number range in the infobox of Hindu population of Bangladesh (x) 13,790,000–17,000,000 into (y) 17,000,000-25,000,000. As according to 2019 Bangladesh Bureau of estimation, there are around 25 million Hindus living in the nation.

Below is the reference -

[6] 2409:4065:E82:FA99:59D7:EFE7:B816:4736 (talk) 14:47, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Your later edit request has already been  done, so thank you very much! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 12:32, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Regarding Pakistan infobox Hindu Demography.

Plz change the the Pakistan's Hindu population from (x) 7,500,000-10,000,000 to (y) 8,000,000-10,000,000. Below is the source [7] 2409:4065:E87:4AE4:281C:89D9:BB95:D63C (talk) 09:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

 Already done, and thank you for your input! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 12:32, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Regarding Pakistan Hindu Demography in the infobox part

According to an estimation, there can be 1 crore Hindus in Pakistan because still thousands of women and children are not NIC holders and thus not counted by NADRA. Plz change the Pakistan's Hindu population range from (x) 7,500,000-9,000,000 into (y) 7,500,000-10,000,000.

Below is the reference. [8] 2409:4065:301:6A3F:A650:C759:6623:1BAC (talk) 09:23, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

 Done Kautilya3 (talk) 12:23, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Hinduism 1Bradley A Flick (talk) 01:40, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Regarding Bangladesh Hindu Demography

Plz change the Bangladesh Hindu Demography in the infobox from (X) 17,000,000-27,000,000 into (Y) 18,000,000-27,000,000. Below is the reference. [9] 2409:4065:E87:4AE4:281C:89D9:BB95:D63C (talk) 09:49, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

 Already done, and thank you so much for your help editing! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 12:32, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Consensus on the infobox image

We should have a consensus for the image to be used for the infobox. Seems like editors are changing the image at will. WikiLinuz (talk) 16:59, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

@Dev0745: If most of the hindus attend Durga puja then we can add it there. Hinduism is a diverse form of religion. there is no single ritual which is been adopted by all the hindus on this earth, here we need to look through practices adopted by most of the hindus and i believe Durga puja is one of them due to a large number support we can see by attendees. What do you think? Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty (talk) 15:38, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Hello, Hindu is ancient and diverse religion. The ancient scripture vedas don't mention idol worship. Idol worship, temple appear in much later after Maurya period (3rd century BCE). Many sects don't support idol worship such as Arya samaj who support Vedic tradion. Folk Hinduism is also not based on Idol worship. I also view that although idol worship is part of Hinduism but Hinduism is not based on Idol worship and many Hindus are against it. It is not limit hindusim to just idol worship which is not ancient tradition. So It would be better to put previous image of marriage ritual instead of Worship of Durga idol. Thanks Dev0745 (talk) 03:06, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

@Dev0745: And do you believe that this particular wedding ritual is adaptable to all the Hindus? Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty (talk) 22:21, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Marriage ritual are different in different regions but welcoming of Groom in marriage by doing Arti is common in North, West and East Indian Hindu weddings. Dev0745 (talk) 12:52, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

@Dev0745: Arya Samaj believes that we do not worship idol but we worship God through idol. Similarly the people who attend Durga Puja in such a large number believes in the same concept and i see no concrete reason to remove the image of Durga puja. I would like if you would add those commentary to the body of the article to explain the essence of worship. But this still not justify the removal of the Image of Durga puja as there are more people that worship gods in various forms. Murti is one of those form so that's absolutely not the justification of denial of Durga image, i believe its the matter of theology and interpretation that must be covered in body. Worship of formless god and Worship of printed images form both resides in hinduism. Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty (talk) 14:16, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Arya samaj prohibit worship of any form of Idol. Worship of God through idol is belief of many Hindus not of Arya samaj. Vedas are most ancient hindu literature in which idol worship is absent. There are many festival like Holy, Dewali, makar Sankranti where no idol worshiiped. Navratri is known as Durga Puja in Bengal. In Navratri commonly in North, West, South India no worship of Durga idol takes place. In North India ramlela held. In Bengal worship of Durga Idol started prevelent during Navratri which was started during British Period. Not all Hindu belief in idol worship, Many oppose it. So putting image idol of Durga is like saying that all Hindus worship Durga Idol. It is also like generalising that hindu worship idol. Arti is common in hindu weddings in majority India(North, West, East). I can't say for South India. But marriage rituals are not oppose by hindus as opposed to idol worship. Durga idol worship don't represent all hindus. Lead image is representative. Lead image should be representive. It should not be ooffensive. Showing hindus as Idol worshiper is offensive to many Hindus particularly who don't support idol worship. So image should be removed. See

Also worship of Durga idol is not representive image of all hindus. It is particularly represent Durga Puja traditiona of Bengal. So better remove the image of idol worship which is disputed and offensive to many hindus and add something else which is not disputed or offensive. Previous image of marriage ritual is not disputed and not offensive.

Dev0745 (talk) 14:46, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

@Dev0745: Can you provide me with a clear reference that describe the use of Durga Puja image as offensive. Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty (talk) 07:40, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

When you label those hindu who oppose idol worship as Idol worshiper, it is a act of ignorance. Many hindus could feel offensive about it. It is about use of Durga idol or any Idol in infobox which should represent all hindus, but use of any Idol worship don't represent all hindus as many hindus don't support idol worship. So image should be removed. Idol worship is not core philosophy of Hinduism. There are many Hindu philosophy which don't believe in any personal God or creater God such as Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā and Vedanta. There are many Atheist hindus. There are many Hindu tradition who oppose idol worship such as Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj. There is definitely not any article which will say Durga idol is offensive to hindus as hindu believe in diversity and personal choice of people what to believe or not believe and what to worship and not worship. It is clear that Hinduism has atheist tradition and many Hindu traditional and mordern movement don't support idol worship. Atheist also don't believe in God and Idol worship. Idol worship is not central belief of Hinduism but one of many belief or path. Giving important to Idol worship in infobox is misleading as it is not central belief in Hinduism and many Hindu philosophy and tradition don't believe in God or idol worship. Infobox image should represent all hindus not some hindus. So image should be removed. Previous image should be used as It represent major tradition of majority of hindus. Also it will be good if we put image of hindus lighting Diya in Diwali or playing colour power in Holi as these festival are celebrated by all hindus and there is nothing dispute about it. Dev0745 (talk) 10:32, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

@Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty: What your thoughts on my view that that image of infobox is representative image. Current image of Durga idol worship only represent some hindu who believe in Idol worship but not represent who reject idol worship and atheist hindu. So infobox image should be replaced with image which is representative of all hindus.Dev0745 (talk) 05:44, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@Dev0745: A large number of people believe in Durga photos, If you want to refer them as 'some', please provide a reliable source for it. Because i believe 'most' of the hindus believe in forms of god. And you can write the believes of 'Atheist hindus' in the body of article but do not change the lead image. Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty (talk) 18:40, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty: Definitely It represent large no. of hindus i.e who believe in idol worship. But it not represent all hindus. It not represent hindus who don't believe in idol worship and atheist hindus. Infobox image is representive Image So I want to put image which represent all Hindu in infobox i.e image of hindus celebrating Holi or Diwali as all hindus celebrate Holi or Diwali. Dev0745 (talk) 11:32, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

@Dev0745: There is a policy of wikipedia in this regard WP:DUE, thats why i request you to represent the views of 'atheist hindus' in body section, not in lead. And please do not modify comments of other users as you did here. Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty (talk) 16:35, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

@Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty: This is not about what written in article or images in article. It is about infobox image which is representative image should represent all. Infobox image is not same as other images in article. I not oppose Durga idol worship image in article if it is in other section but oppose it in infobox as infobox image is representative image. Durga idol worship don't represent all hindus but as many hindus don't support idol worship. So image which represent all hindus should be in infobox such as Images of Holi or Diwail as all hindus observe these festival and anyone don't oppose it as in the case of idol worship. See:Images for the lead. Atheist hindus may be minority but they are still part of hindu religion as atheism is part of hindu philosophy. Arya Samaj is also mainstream. Foremost most ancient and revered hindu scripture such as Vedas don't mention idol worship neither Upanishads and Smritis. So giving priority to idol worship which is later origin in medieval period in infobox image is stereotyping. Dev0745 (talk) 03:44, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

@Dev0745: There are sources that mention the worship god in a certain form in vedas, there are many secondary sources which advocate the pooja of god in certain forms in other scriptures. I request you to provide me with a reference that mention the use of Durga image as offensive. Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty (talk) 20:10, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

@Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty: Various hindu scriptures such as Vedas, Sruti, Mimansa advocate diverse philosophy, such as Polytheism, Monotheism, Agnostic, Atheism etc. So hindus have diverse belief. Many those believe in Polytheism do worship different gods making idols, but it is not belief of all hindus. Those who believe in Monotheism such as Arya samaj reject Purana and Idol worship. Those who are atheist don't believe in god, so don't worship anyone. Like I already mentioned lso aspplies hereare free to choose their belief, But there are bebate about different belief in Hinduism. No one take offence when any hindu worship Durga idol, but labeling all hindus as Idol worshiper is generalising. And Those hindu who belief in Monotheism, Agnostic and Atheist don't Identify themselves with Idol worship.

Durga idol is not offensive to hindus so there is not any article or reference about it. But although Durga idol worship is not offensive to any hindus but it not representive of all hindus I.e Monotheist, Agnostic and Atheist hindus. So Any other image should be placed in infobox image which represent all hindus e.g image of Lighting Diya in Diwali or Images of Holi festival as Infox image is representative image and should represent all hindus not some. Dev0745 (talk) 08:26, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

@Dev0745: I would like to suggest you to read MOS:LEADREL, WP:PROPORTION and WP:FALSEBALANCE. Most of the hindus believe in of worship of god in certain form if one does not believe in you can cover their belief in body section. Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty (talk) 15:45, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

@Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty: Your suggested pages are about lead section of article or about writing in article not about image or infobox image. See:Images for the lead. It is clearly written that infobox image is representative image. So it should represent all. Also hindu is not only religious but cultural identity. Hindu and Hinduism is different. Hindu is person. Hindu is also cultural identity like festival, cutoms. thanks Dev0745 (talk) 08:41, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Dev0745: Hindu is a religion as well as culture you cannot neglect religion and focus on culture. Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty (talk) 16:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty: In article, Hindu is person not religion. hindu is person both religiously and culturally. Hindu is not Hindu just because he follow Hinduism but also he follow hindu culture. Hinduism is religion and Hindu is person. Again I say infobox image is representative image. So it should represent all. Current infobox image is not representive image for all hindu.Dev0745 (talk) 03:13, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

@Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty: Do you have anything to say? You seem to giving not valid reason why image should not be changed. Dev0745 (talk) 15:08, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@Dev0745: I am still waiting for the references for what you said. Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty (talk) 15:16, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

@Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty: This is common sense. There is no reference required for it. All know that hindu philosophy includs various belief such as polytheism, Monotheism, Agnostic, Atheism. And Idol worship only represent those hindu polytheist who believe in idol worship. So definitely Durga idol may represent majority hindus but it not representive of all hindus. This is common sense. I am asking you same question, Can you provide me reference that Durga idol worshiped by all hindus or Durga idol worship is representative of all hindus? Do you have reference to back your claim? Dev0745 (talk) 16:09, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

First sentence of article

Not sure I understand what the article means by "regard themselves as culturally, ethnically, or religiously adhering to aspects of Hinduism". Hinduism is a religion, the only way you could be a Hindu is to belong to the Hindu religion. I don't quite understand what is meant by "ethnically a Hindu" or "culturally" a Hindu. Neither of those are possible. If there was some jurisdiction by Hindu scholars or religious figures that indicated that you could "ethnically" or "culturally" adhere to Hinduism I would be willing to concede the case, but I can't seem to find any. Even the source provided clearly denotes Hindus to be a religious group, albeit a diverse one:

"Since the people called Hindu differed from Muslims most notably in religion, the word came to have religious implications, and to denote a group of people who were identifiable by their Hindu religion"

Many thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Josepherino (talk • contribs) 04:14, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Early Emigration of Hindus to the Arabia

It is believed from the old times that some from the south and south west of India came to Oman and to Yemen, both countries in the Arabian Peninsular, before the advent of Islam, on Arab merchant ships of ancient Oman and Yemen and resettled in the desert as shepherds and breeding cattle. They were called, later, or, known later, as A'araab, then spoke Arabic but not in a very nice way until today or not proper Arabic, which, A'araab came to mean the people of the desert, but not as prestigious as the pure Arab. (it cannot be put better). It is also recorded in old days in Iraq that some Hindus came with Hulagu army of the Mongols, and during their rule, in his invasion of Baghdad, for logistic purposes of the Mongols army. (They joint the Mongols in 1252 to work for the Mongols after the Mongol's invasion of Islamic Sultanate of Delhi and took the Punjab province, they are believed from Punjab) they are called in Iraq [Shrooq, they are tribals, Shrooq means came from the East, others called Mi-e'daan and another group called Quaratch - And resettled in Iraq with their families. The question; Is there any record in India or Persia to confirm this. Because the records in Iraq were lost, and we in Iraq learnt this by conveying it from generation to generation. What make people believe it, is the genetic features and also from the language they speak. Written by Y.T Al-Hanoon. 194.127.108.144 (talk) 22:18, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 November 2022

Unfortunately the information this page provides is half baked without any scientific research. The oldest written scriptures are the 4 Vedas and those Vedas have a term called Hindu, which is originally a combined word of Sanskrit as heen + do means to remove the inferiority. I wish the Wikipedia could provide the correct information about this word as it correlated to so many sentiments of the oldest religion of the world, with scientific facts, which are being accepted largely in every portion of life and world. The world has full rights to know about the fact. With all the facts and written over the years the word Hindu is not a Persian word as it proclaims. Thanks. And yes offcourse if I would like to edit it I will not change it's original content, rather i just add the other scientific facts and the proofs along with the references and screen shots of the scriptures. Ashit b (talk) 04:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 04:41, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 July 2022

Amendment to this line: The term "Hindu" word which is derived from the Sanskrit name Sindhu (सिन्धु ), referring to the river Indus.

To this line: The term "Hindu" traces back the Sanskrit name Sindhu (सिन्धु ), which refers to the river Indus. Parvati308 (talk) 22:53, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: The source states, from Old Persian Hindu, the name for the province of Sind, from Sanskrit sindhu "river." The current prose arrears to be an accurate summary. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:00, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

information given on wiki is wrong. kindly cross verify Nealgit143 (talk) 05:44, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

The word Hindu is a combined word of Sanskrit. Heen+do which actually means that to remove the inferiority. Ashit b (talk) 03:53, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 November 2022

kindly edit the word old persiain used in the context. Hindu word comes from Sanatan origin (sanskrit word). Nealgit143 (talk) 05:26, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

kindly edit the word old persiain used in the context. Hindu word comes from Sanatan origin (sanskrit word).

 Not done: This is covered in depth in the article. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:23, 9 November 2022 (UTC)