the cause, with the future reward or punishment as the effect. Some of these con-
sequences occur in this life, while others occur in future lives. Since karma reflects
the overall tone of one’s life, it is comparable to the notion of a person’s “character”:
Both are formed over a long period of time, both are measures of the whole person,
and both reflect how our habitual ways of feeling, thinking, and acting tend to
shape who we are.
It is tempting to envision reincarnation as an opportunity to rectify past mistakes
or to learn lessons still unlearned. For Hindus, as for Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains, noth-
ing could be further from the truth; reincarnation is never seen as an opportunity, but
invariably as a burden. This is because all states of being, both good and bad, are ulti-
mately impermanent and thus provide no sure refuge. Even the gods, who are enjoy-
ing the rewards of their past actions, will be born elsewhere when their stored merit is
exhausted. Others are enduring punishment for their sins, but when this is done they
will be reborn elsewhere.
Although most Hindus would grant that liberation from reincarnation (moksha) is
the ultimate goal, traditional Hindu culture has sanctioned three other goals, all of
which are more compatible with a normal life in society: the search for pleasure
(kama); the quest for wealth, fame, and power (artha); and, above all, the search for a
righteous, balanced life (dharma). This stress on multiple goals reflects the flexibility
of Hindu religious life. Each person can pursue different goals according to his or her
inclinations, although certain goals are considered to be more appropriate for partic-
ular stages of life. In this way a person is free to express his or her individual religious
identity, although that identity is inevitably shaped by forces arising from a larger
familial, social, and cultural context.
The Roots of Hinduism
The influences and developments of Hinduism are as expansive as the roots and
branches of a banyan tree. A banyan tree is unusual in that in addition to the tree’s
upward spreading branches, it also has branches that grow down, take root, and
become trunks in their own right. An old banyan tree can be hundreds of feet in diam-
eter, and it is often difficult to discern which is the original trunk. In the same way, the
religion that we call Hinduism is constantly evolving. New religious forms arise from
the older ones, while many of the older ones continue to exist. Despite Hinduism’s
complex origins, its religious history can be roughly divided into six periods, corre-
sponding to the development of varying religious tendencies and ideas.
The earliest and most mysterious of these is the period of the Indus Valley
Civilization, named for the large ruined cities found throughout the Indus Valley and
beyond. The ruins of prominently placed storage granaries indicate that the civiliza-
tion’s economic base was agricultural, and the striking uniformity of the ruins of these
cities leads one to believe that the people were bound by some strong central author-
ity. Archaeologists have recovered a wealth of physical artifacts, revealing a great deal
about the layout of the cities, what the inhabitants ate and wore, and the animals they
domesticated. At the same time, nothing is certain about the religious life of these
people, although certain artifacts have raised intriguing speculations. It is not even
known whether the religion and culture of the Indus Valley Civilization have contin-
ued to affect Indian culture, although some scholars have been more inclined to infer
this than others.
This culture seemed to lose its vitality sometime around 2000 B.C.E. Within a few
centuries it had largely disappeared from the Indus Valley, although it remained vital
for much longer in outlying regions, particularly Gujarat. According to some theories,
its decline was the result of a prolonged drought. The latter part of its decline was
marked by the arrival of the Aryans. This brought Hinduism into its second period of
religious history. The Aryans were a nomadic cattle-herding people whose earliest reli-
gious text, the Rg Veda, is believed to have been preserved unchanged for almost four
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