About Hinduism

The term Hinduism describes the major continuing and connected religious traditions of India, now present throughout the world. Hinduism embraces a very wide range of beliefs and practices. Being a Hindu is to find one’s place within the eternal dharma – the proper ordering of life, personal, social, cosmic. Hindus revere one Supreme Being, believing in different manifestations of the divine deity itself or its powers. Key features of this tradition are a strong sense of the sacred pervading every aspect of everyday life, and the principle of karma – the relationship between actions and their consequences. Hindus hold a number of texts to be sacred; one of the most important scriptures is the Bhagavad Gita.

The UK community

Hindus have visited and worked in the UK for centuries, and have settled here in larger numbers since the 1950s. Today the Hindu population of the UK is over 0.5m, 1% of the total UK population according to census figures.

The local community

The mainstream Hindu temple is the Tridev Meditation Society in the Uplands.

Govinda’s has a vegetarian restaurant and its members follow strict vegetarian diets. This Society believes Krishna to be the supreme deity. International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKON) is also known as the Hare Krishna movement.