This volume focuses on Buddhism and Jainism, two religions which, together with Hinduism, constitute the three pillars of Indic religious tradition in its classical formulation. It explores their history and relates how the Vedic period in the history of Hinduism drew to a close around the sixth century BCE and how its gradual etiolation gave rise to a number of religious movements. While some of these remained within the fold of the Vedic traditions, others arose in a context of a more ambiguous relationship between the two. Two of these have survived to the present day as Buddhism and...

This volume describes Sikhism, the youngest member of the Indic religious traditions. It looks at the striking features of this tradition and describes its birth in the fifteenth century and its continual evolution between the sixteenth and late twentieth centuries into an independent formation often described as the "world's fifth largest religion." The volume explains how Sikhism arose at a time of religious and political ferment, a fact which left its mark on its interactions with other traditions, notably Islam, Christianity and Hinduism. The volume illustrates that Sikhism's political...