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The Hinduism is the oldest organized religion in the world. The religion is based on Vedas, which have grown from small books of prayers and ritual rites into the largest scriptures of the world much before than any of the other major religions have been even conceived.
Usually, the dating of Rigveda, the first book of Indians is given a dating of 1500 Be. If you are a student, it is better to stick to this date, since that is what your text books say.
But the newer facts of Indian history show that Rg Veda must have been composed not later than 1900 Be.The river Saraswati, which was very sacred to the Vedic Indians was shown to have totally dried and extinct by the satellite information soon after this date.
The internal evidence of Vedas which describes some astronomical dates show that these scriptures are dated to much earlier period, say at least 4500 Be.
On the other hand, Zorastrianism which is based on Hinduism in some ways, could not be dated to earlier than 6Th century bce. The old persian religion, ie the religion as it stood before their prophet Zorastrutha is much more older though it could not be placed earlier than 1000 bce. Thus, the ancient holy books of persians could not be placed earlier to say, 800 bce, giving them a 200 year time to evolve. They have borrowed ad verbatim from Rgveda, though interestingly they pray to the Gods who are described as demons by Hinduism. The later persians also have taken it upon themselves to annihilate or convert all those tribes which have prayed to Daevas, the Gods of Hinduism, who are demons for Persians.
However, their legends speak of a lost home, from where they immigrated to Iran. If these legends are to be believed, the persian religion could be older by atleast a millennium. This date is also very young compared to the traditions of Rgveda.
Hope this helps,
Kishore patnaik
groups.yahoo.com/group/ancientindia/join
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Which religion is more ancient Hinduism or Zoroastrianism?
