Indian religions have arisen in large part as an effort to explain the atrocious suffering that most Hindus throughout history have experienced during lives that have been filled mainly with hardship and pain. All three of the religions we are examining were attempts to do exactly this, but they each take on a different view with regard to God(s) and the concept of Karma. Specifically, Hinduism is the only one of the three religions that attempts to define a God or Gods, while the other two take quite and atheistic view on the matter. While there are many different faiths of Hinduism, all of them recognize the important for four aspects common to them all. They all believe in the caste system and give the Brahmans primacy as leaders. They have deep reverence for the cow because they believe it is the symbol of the divine. Hindus further believe in the law of Karma and the ability of the soul to transmigrate. Last, they rejected the gods of the Vedas and constructed new gods in their place. The three gods were Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva-all three of whom symbolize one aspect of the three stages of life and the universe in which Hindus believe, creation, preservation and destruction respectively. To the Hindu each person is living in the here-and-now a life which is the result of virtuous or vice-ridden lives they have previously led. An individual’s destiny is in their own hands because any good or bad deed they do will be rewarded or punished down to the smallest action. Their version of Karma suggests that, “If a man does justice and kindness without sin his reward cannot come on one mortal span; it is stretched over other lives in which, if his virtue persists, he will be reborn into a loftier place and large good fortune; but if he lives evilly he will be reborn as an Outcaste, or a weasel, or a dog” (Durant 514). The soul can know peace by realizing it is only
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