Elaborate on various types of religious practices prevalent in India society. (UPSC CSE Mains 2017 - Sociology, Paper 1)
India is a diverse country with various religions, sects, cults etc having different rituals, rites, beliefs. Various types of religious practices prevalent in India society are:
- Animism: It refers to a given form of religion in which man finds the presence of spirit in every object that surrounds him (E. B. Taylor). Various tribal regions in India practice animism. For ex- Donyi Polo, one of a few surviving centuries-old animist religions in the hilly state of Arunachal Pradesh is home to about 20 major tribes.
- Naturism: Naturism means the belief that the forces of nature have supernatural power. Out of reverence and dependency, man greatly worshiped all the greatest powers of nature: sun, moon, air water without which man''s life and living will is exclusively impossible. In Hinduism, still sun, moon, nature, fire etc are worshiped. In Islam too, moon find an important place as religious rites.
- Monism: Belief in a single attribute, god or religious idea. Eg. Advaita philosophy in Hinduism, Belief in one allah in slam, etc.
- Pluralism: They accommodate for different viewpoints, beliefs, etc. Eg. Sects in Hinduism, Trinitarians’ in Christianity
- Pantheism: The belief that all of reality is identical with divinity and everything composes an all-encompassing god.
- Totemism: Totemism, the system of belief in which humans are said to have kinship or a mystical relationship with a spirit-being, such as an animal or plant. The entity, or totem, is thought to interact with a given kin group or an individual and to serve as their emblem or symbol. The Birhor, a people that were traditionally residents of the jungle of Chotanagpur Plateau in the northeast Deccan, are organized into patrilineal, exogamous totem groups.
- Cults: The term cult usually refers to a social group defined by its religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or its common interest in a particular personality, object or goal.it is a voluntary association. For ex- Shree Shree Ravi Shankar (Art of living)
- Sects: A sect is a small religious group that is branched off of a larger established religion. Sects have many beliefs and practices in common with the religion that they have broken off from, but are differentiated by a number of doctrinal differences. Eg. Shaivism and vaishnavism in Hinduism
The presence of various religious practices signifies the presence of distinct religious belief and form of religion in India.
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