Pub. date: 2002 | Online Pub. Date: September 15, 2007 | DOI:
10.4135/9781412950664 | Print ISBN: 9780761922582 | Online ISBN:
9781412950664| Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this
encyclopedia Werner F. Menski Hinduism is the major religion of
India and is a world religion, having been spread beyond India's
borders by Indian Hindus who have settled elsewhere. There are
about 800 million adherents of Hinduism around the world.
Hinduism permeates all aspects of life in India and contains
ritual, experiential, narrative, philosophical, ethical, legal,
social, material, and artistic dimensions. Hinduism is a complex
religion, and there is much variation in belief and practice
across the villages of India. Compared to other world religions,
the scholarly study of Hindu criminal law has been limited,
largely because during and following British rule, criminal
justice in India was strongly influenced by Thomas Macauley's
secular Indian Penal Code, imposed by the British in 1860.
Unlike Imperial China, ancient