The Emergence of Hinduism from Christianity?

The Emergence of Hinduism from Christianity is an idea I encountered while browsing on YouTube recently. The following videos are a presentation someone has uploaded based on the ideas of Professor M.M. Ninan's book H induism: What Really Happened in India .

I could not find much on Ninan online other than books being sold and a wiki article about one of his brothers and some association to the World Council of Churches. There are photos of him and and I believe he is an Indian Christian who lived in India and May or may not have taught at an Indian university.

He suggest that before the time of Thomas in India there were 3 religions native to India.

Vedic – Aryan Nature religion

Buddhist - Anti-theistic

Jainism – non-theistic


Ninan's ideas are based around the idea that the apostle Thomas ministry in India was successful but later influenced by gnosticism through the Mandaean's.

He cites as evidence a lack of Sanskrit before Thomas arrival, no Hindu idols before 2nd century A.D. , No Hindu temples before Thomas time, correlations between the Gospel story and mythologies in Hinduism and the Isavasya Upanishad, and some other interesting ideas such as that of the Om being a representation of God/Christ/The word that was later mythologized into the elephant head on Ganesha.

The presentation did seem to have some Catholic biases but I must admit I have never heard of this idea before. It would seem to answer some of the questions I have had regarding Hinduism and Christianity but also seems really controversial and I have to admit that I do not know the history or Archeology of India well enough to believe these claims.

I urge others here to investigate these claims and offer their opinions. The videos seem to scroll through the presented info kind of quickly so be warned you may need to pause from time to time. Some grammatical errors as well probably not created by a native English speaker.

reply to post by NihilistSanta


I don't know that I agree with his findings. Hinduism is said to have originated with the Upanishads, which date back to ninth century BCE.

Also, his timelines are suspect. Sanskrit dates back to the 4th century BCE, not 100 CE.

Reply to post by solomons path

I was going to say, Hinduism is the oldest known religion, bar a small few, but still older than all three Abrahamic faiths, even Judaism.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

It's far more likely that he's got it backwards if he's not completely delusional. There's a reason why his book is hardly known and toilet paper worthy. Conjecture and propaganda abound.

Well while his claims defy convention I am currently investigating some of the key points and will post back.


- Oldest Idols
- Oldest Sanskrit Samples
- Oldest Hindu Temples etc

We seem to scrutinize the oral traditions of other faiths but have not applied the same to Hinduism. Again I am not an expert but feel that the question was compelling enough to warrant further study. Feel free to add your findings and or refutations.

reply to post by NihilistSanta


Um, it is kind of hard to be a successor of a religion that you're actually a predecessor for.

All religions borrow from each other or have similar stories. This is to help assimilate the masses or convert them.

reply to post by MonkeyFishFrog


Ok so you support the current model. Why?

This is kind of what I am trying to discover. I am currently having trouble finding what is considered the oldest samples of those mentioned before. Did you watch the videos or are you basing this on a preconceived notion?

I would like to keep the post informative and not a bunch of "everyone knows Hinduism preceded Christianity" post. I would love to see the evidence for either case. I have not drawn any conclusions as of yet but will continue to post with any findings.

Thanks to the participants so far.

reply to post by NihilistSanta


I base this from 2 years of studying Anthropology/Archaeology with a focus on religion. Its my degree as well.

reply to post by MonkeyFishFrog



Ok this is very nice then. You should be able to show me the evidence supporting the current model. Not just the belief that Hindus think their religion is old. Every religion believes itself the oldest. I am researching Vigrha currently and there is mention of the Kalpa Vigrha being 28,000 yrs old. Not sure what to believe of that since it is supposedly lost. Other than that I have not found any Vigrha from the BC era but the search is young so still no conclusions made yet.

reply to post by NihilistSanta

He suggest that before the time of Thomas in India there were 3 religions native to India.

Vedic – Aryan Nature religion
Buddhist - Anti-theistic
Jainism – non-theistic

OK, lets analyze that suggestion in reverse order:

Jainism: Founded in the 6th Century B.C. (600 years before Christ) by Nataputta Vardhamana called "Mahavira" (The Great Warrior). He was a warrior for internal enlightenment, Jains promote vegitarianism, opposition to war, and non-violence even in self-defense. Jains will not eat root vegetables or drink water after dark in case they inadvertently kill an insect. Jainism is a 6th century modification of Hinduism. If Jainism existed before St. Thomas, so did Hinduism.

Buddhism: Founded in the 6th Century B.C. (600 years before Christ) by Siddhartha Gautama called "The Buddha". Gautama was a member of a Hindu clan called the 'Sakyas'. This is important - Buddhism is another 6th Century modification to Hinduism. So if Buddhism existed before St. Thomas, so did Hinduism.

Vedic: Vedic Hinduism is the PREHISTORIC predecessor of modern Hinduism. "Vedic" IS Hinduism. If Vedic existed before St. Thomas then so did Hinduism, because "Vedic" IS Hinduism.

The real questions then are:
1) what is the motivation for your correspondents to relate this ridiculous claim?
2) what is your point in promoting silly claims that are so trivially simple to refute?

Did you watch the videos at all or are you just posting what you have been told all your life?
I have not drawn any conclusions but found the hypothesis interesting enough to warrant further investigation.
Ninan's belief was that the prehistoric vedic religion was nothing more than a nature religion like many other prehistoric religions and has very little in common with modern Hinduism.

He cites as his evidence that there are no Hindu temples before the 2nd century. There are no Hindu idol statues/murtis/vigrha before that time period either. He goes into detail about the Christians in Kerpalas history and claims that before the Mandean Gnostic influence after the 2nd century there was nothing like modern Hinduism. There are plenty of temples and statues that show us the presence of Jain and Buddhist presence at that time so where is the evidence for Hindu temples before the CE?

He goes further to state that some Hindu mythology like the incarnations of Krishna are actually a symbolic retelling of Christian events that was culturally adapted by Thomas and the indigenous peoples there. He claims also that the Isavasya Upanishad is a retelling of genesis and the bible.

I have asked for help from others in this thread because I would like to be able to substantiate or deny his claims. So far no poster has added anything other than to repeat dates that we are told with no evidence. I understand the Hindus believe that their oral tradition is ANCIENT however where is the proof? When are our oldest Hindu Sanskrit writings dated from?

Ninan believed that westerners are partly to blame for this as well as the gnostic influences from the middle east. For this thread to go anywhere people have to actually analyze the videos and book that were presented. I am working on a point by point analysis which I will post at a later date.

reply to post by NihilistSanta


What evidence do you want? The fact that Christianity has borrowed the entire First Testament from the Hebrew book the Torah which was written around 1700 BCE in what is today Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The New Testament began to be written at the very earliest 50 CE (20 years after) the supposed life of Jesus Christ and it was taken from Greek writings being produced at that time. Further writings of New Testament take places over the next couple of centuries.

Hinduism developed from the Harappan civilization that was founded in the Indus Valley region of India at around 2800 BCE. The first writings of the Vedas which are the Sanskrit Hindu scriptures were written at 1500 BCE.

Linguistic Anthropologists and Glottochronologists can determine by language use how old documents are. They monitor how language changes over time through changes in word use, spelling or even style of sentence construction. The style of Greek used for writing most of the New Testament are written in a style seen only in the 400-500 CE era not to mention the parchment that it was written on also dates to 400 CE.

The modern "Hinduism" is recent, it was originally Sanatana Dharma or the Eternal Religion, it was more than a religion, it was philosophy(much like most eastern religion).

I heard stories that go beyond 3500BC relating to Hinduism, some even said its over 7000BCE, but most of the temple and books were destroyed over time and also by occupying forces that invaded India, such as Muslims and much later British.

Abrahamic Faith are children compared to most Eastern religion.

reply to post by MonkeyFishFrog


Well this is from Wikipedia :

The earliest attested Sanskrit texts are Brahmanical texts of the Rigveda, which date to the mid-to-late second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if ever existed. However, scholars are confident that the oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they were ceremonial literature whose correct pronunciation was considered crucial to its religious efficacy.[11]

From Sanskrit

How do we go from saying they are from the 2nd millennium BCE yet in the same paragraph mention that no records survive if they even existed? Seems to me the history of Hindu ideas and faiths has been muddled with by invaders and western historians.

Originally posted by luciddream
The modern "Hinduism" is recent, it was originally Sanatana Dharma or the Eternal Religion, it was more than a religion, it was philosophy(much like most eastern religion).

I heard stories that go beyond 3500BC relating to Hinduism, some even said its over 7000BCE, but most of the temple and books were destroyed over time and also by occupying forces that invaded India, such as Muslims and much later British.

Abrahamic Faith are children compared to most Eastern religion.

edit on 11/8/2012 by luciddream because: (no reason given)

Well I have heard the stories as well but the evidence seems lacking. We have the supposed city of krishna found off the coast of india but that could be any civilization that was later applied to krishna or something along those lines personally I believe it part of the antediluvian world. There is also the Kalpa Vigrha which is claimed to be 28,000 years old but it "mysteriously" disappeared.

reply to post by NihilistSanta


The theory presented in the OP is tired and has been debunked.

www.archaeologyonline.net...

However, the German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer stated that the Sanskrit understanding of these Indologists was like that of young schoolboys.

These early Indologists:

• Devised the Aryan Invasion theory, denying India's Vedic past

• They taught that the English educational system is superior

• They intentionally misinterpreted sanskrit texts to make the Vedas look primitive.

• And they systematically tried to make Indians ashamed of their own culture

• Thus the actions of these indologists seems to indicate that they were motivated by a racial bias.

Innumerable archaeological findings and their analysis have recently brought the Aryan Invasion Theory into serious question. This theory is still taught as fact in many educational systems despite much contrary evidence.

The recent discovery of the dried riverbed of the Sarasvati River has more than proven the hypothesis of the OP.

• There are more than 2,500 Archaeological sites, two-thirds of which are along the recently discovered dried up Sarasvati River bed. These sites show a cultural continuity with the Vedic literature from the early Harrapan civilization up to the present day India.

• The significance of establishing this date for the drying up of the Sarasvati River is, that it pushes the date for the composition of the Rig Veda back to approximately 3,000 B.C.E., as enunciated by the Vedic tradition itself.

"Pure in her course from the mountains to the ocean, alone of streams Sarasvati hath listened."

The mighty Sarasvati River and it's civilization are referred to in the Rig Veda more than fifty times, proving that the drying up of the Sarasvati River was subsequent to the origin of the Rig Veda

reply to post by windword


Thank you for you participation windword, this is the kind of info I am going for. Like I have stated before I dont hold that the view of M.M. Ninan is the correct one merely that he raised some interesting questions in regards to the historical accuracy given to vedic and post vedic hindu writings.

This link is from Ninan and he claims that sanskrit did not exist until the 2nd century ad. He is an Indian so I did not think he was having any racial bias against Indians

Prof M.M. Ninan - Isovasya Upanishad

The Samhitâ of the White Yajur-veda is generally acknowledged to be of later origin than the Rig Veda and is written in Sanskrit. Since Sanskrit as a language came into existence only in the second century AD, the Upanishad itself must be placed after that period. It is important to note also that all scholars agree that Isa is one of the earliest Upanishads. Upanishads came into existence only after the ministry of Apostle Thomas in India. Thomas, the disciple of Jesus, came to India in A.D. 52 and had a twenty year old ministry all through India until his martyrdom in Mylapore, Madras, Tamil Nadu, India in A.D.72. His ministry extended from Taxila in the North to the Malabar Coast in the southern tip of India covering the entire subcontinent of India. Considering the impact of the ministry of other Apostles in Africa, Middle East and Europe, we cannot doubt the tremendous impact that the Ministry of Apostle Thomas Dydymus had in the Indian continent. The basic impact of Thomas in India was the radical change in the concept of God. The Three major religions of India at that time were Vedic (who were nature worshippers), Buddhist and Jain (who were atheists). However with the coming of Thomas, the concept of God changed radically – the concept of a Supreme God. This Upanishad expresses the concept of Isa as Paran (Lord; Yesu Paran = Jesus is Lord = Iswaran). The impact of this mission was that the name Isa and Iswaran came to be equivalent to God all through later Indian scriptures. From then on, the entire history of Indian Religions changed radically. Gnosticism which lost its ground in the rest of the west followed Christianity into India and eventually supplanted it to give rise to what we today call Hinduism through syncretism and myths and legends typical of Gnostic religions.

reply to post by NihilistSanta

His points really don't have a leg to stand on. The written Hindu scriptures predate the earliest written copies of the books of the Old Testament.

Originally posted by NihilistSanta
This link is from Ninan and he claims that sanskrit did not exist until the 2nd century ad. He is an Indian so I did not think he was having any racial bias against Indians

His bias, however, is for Christianity. He is a missionary and the approach he's taking to the Hindu community is "see? it's the same thing, really -- so you should convert to the original." This approach is one commonly used by missionaries. This doesn't mean the information is correct but it's the wedge they want to use to drive the person away from their original religion to the missionary's religion.

reply to post by Byrd


I agree this could be the case. There is not much information on the guy I could find. However I just wanted to put his argument out there and see how it stacks up with what is accepted knowledge. Examples to refute his claims etc. have not been easy to find.