ABSTRACT

As a religion Hinduism stands out. Of all the great world faiths, Hinduism is the one that is the most geographically focused, both in terms of its sacred topography and the concentration of its adherents in the Indian subcontinent.All the sacred sites of Hinduism are located within the subcontinent as are over 98 per cent of Hindus (O’Brien and Palmer 1993: 24-25). In this respect it is profoundly unlike the great monotheist and universal faiths of Semitic origin, Christianity and Islam. Yet it also does not possess either the singularity of their precursor, Judaism, with which it shares the sense of a specific sacred homeland, or its geographical dispersion (the majority of the world’s Jews continue to live outside Israel).