Astika basically means believer, and Nastika means non-believer.
I was taught , Astika , beliving in the existance of : "existant "
and nastika , not beleiving in the existance of :" not existant "
pertaining to the vedic veiw and allso to the attitudes towards liberation and the atainment of oneness with god , realisation of the supreme .....it is actualy rather complex !
These terms are used in reference to the Vedas, but not to Theism.
not entirely , I'v heard it applied to theism / non theism , allso .
For example, one can believe in certain gods, but not believe in certain Vedic elements. My family for generations worship our ancestral deity as our primary god (in Tamil we call it Kula Devam). For instance, we have never done certain Vedic practices like cremation. We only bury our dead. Our priests are from our community and not from the Brahmanical tradition.
so , here is a divide between what is generaly termed hinduism , and what is pertaining to the vedas
This type of Hinduism is most similar to the ancestor worship of other civilizations, and worship of nature and spirits. There's a lot of superstition involved as well, which make it slightly different from the Vedic practices. But they are similar in many regards especially with certain ritual practices (like the importance of a ceremonial fire). Most of the time the differences aren't very apparent, the two are very well blended in our present Indian culture and make up what Hinduism is today.
so yes, hinduism combines both vedic and non vedic practices
Regarding whether or not Jainism and Buddhism are part of Hinduism is a separate issue. These are two schools which branched out more recently, and rejected the authority of the Vedas. As I've stated before, being a Hindu doesn't necessarily require one to accept the Vedas. So the real question is, what defines one as a Hindu?
I will quote what I have ben taught (from reliable authority)
the term hindu is name given historicaly by the persian's refering to the peoples living beyond the indus river (the sindu ), calling that land beyond hindustan and its people hindustani , regardless of their different religious practices .
many centurys later the english addopted the use of the term hindu covering the people of the country , only later when the people of india politicaly sought unification did they allso addopt the general term hindu .
my teacher was adamant that we use the correct name BHARATA VARSHA , the true sanskrit name for the indian sub continent . as in" mahabharata"
he was allso insistant that we understand the correct meaning and usage of "sanatana dharma" , translating it as , 'sanatana : eternal' ..'dharma : religious principles'' , the 'law' by which we are bound !laws or rules of conduct laid down in the vedas .concequently I see no difference in buddhist dharma , in that it does not contradict sanatana dharma , therefore allthough buddha rejected the vedas as practiced in buddhas day , he did not contradict vedic principles .In fact buddha re established moral principals , sanatana dharma !
A lot of people (foreigners especially) have adopted this term Sanatana Dharma which from my understanding is Sanskrit for "eternal way" instead of Hinduism which was a term created by some westerner who confused Sindhu.
explained above .exept to say my teacher is a pure bharatia , from a vaisnava sampradaya .
At the end of the day its all just semantics, really. The importance lies more with the philosophies being followed. I think I'm just stating the obvious here.
To answer the initial question, non-dharmic gods have been part of Hinduism since the beginning. But they are definitely separate from the Vedic part of Hinduism. Some like to include these non-dharmic gods as various forms of Siva or another Vedic god, but there's no scriptural validity to that though.
hope I have not confused you further ?
but I feel some points need clarifying ......
Sorry if I've confused any of you!
no offence ment , simply a vaisnava , sanatana dharmi veiw point , :bow:
ratikala
Thank you.
