GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Detailed explanation-1: -If the Indus valley civilization (3rd–2nd millennium bce) was the earliest source of these traditions, as some scholars hold, then Hinduism is the oldest living religion on Earth.

Detailed explanation-2: -The historical Vedic religion is now generally accepted to be a predecessor of Hinduism, but they are not the same because the textual evidence suggests significant differences between the two, such as the belief in an afterlife instead of the later developed reincarnation and samsāra concepts.

Detailed explanation-3: -This Hindu synthesis emerged after the Vedic period, between c. 500–200 BCE and c. 300 CE, in the period of the Second Urbanisation and the early classical period of Hinduism, when the Epics and the first Puranas were composed. It flourished in the medieval period, with the decline of Buddhism in India.