Religious Movements — Definition

Definition

Religious movements in early India were organised traditions of teaching and practice that addressed conduct, suffering, rebirth and liberation. Buddhism and Jainism became major examples during the intellectual ferment of the mid-first millennium BCE.

They shared some concerns while developing distinct accounts of the self, ascetic discipline and the path to liberation. Their history includes followers, monastic communities, lay support, texts and monuments as well as individual teachers.

A religious movement should not be reduced to a founder's biography or treated as a uniform response to one economic cause. Historical analysis also distinguishes a community's remembered tradition from independently established contemporary evidence.