Why I am a Hindu

by Shashi Tharoor

There are simply no binding requirements to being a Hindu. Not even a belief in God.

To accept people as one finds them, to allow them to be and become what they choose, and to encourage them to do whatever they like (so long as it does not harm others) is my natural instinct.

I belong to the only major religion in the world that does not claim to be the only true religion.

‘If [it be true that] an animal slaughtered at the Jyotistoma sacrifice is [in consequence] exalted to heaven’, they asked, ‘why does the worshipper not immolate his own father?’

A god who thus combines the attributes of elephant, mouse and man can remove any obstacle confronting those who propitiate him.

the key to understanding Hinduism is that it is one faith that claims no monopoly on the Truth.

The chronological gap between the earliest verses of the Rig Veda and the bulk of the Upanishads was greater than the time that separates us today from the life of Jesus Christ.

explained that whereas in Christianity the body has a soul, in Hinduism the soul has a body.

‘Whatever a person’s caste, it is enough that a human be good’,

To the Hindu, man is not travelling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth.