[setum]

> can they really ambush a human, and push them over a ledge?

I would say male adult monkeys in my village can (males are bigger and stronger), although they don’t. They are fast, agile and acrobatic. Except for well prepared adult humans, monkeys can throw everyone else off a ledge.

Reason so many monkeys exist in India is because they are sacred animals (to Hindus, 80% population). In our village, no one can kill them. The most one can do is throw a stone to scare them away.

[xwolfi]

Do you think this could change ?

[fault1]

yes, could happen.

modernity tends to change culture (and especially homogenization that the interwebs promotes), and india is modernizing rapidly especially cities. culture can change very rapidly.

that being said, hanuman (rama's monkey companion) is a important diety in hinduism, and has been worshipped for many thousands of years in india and other parts of southeast asia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanuman#Historical_development

[riazrizvi]

Possibly but Hinduism is 4000 years old, so it might be a while before we see that change.

[leephillips]

Where does the 4000 figure come from?

[JadeNB]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hinduism traces the roots of Hinduism as far back as possibly 1900 BC.

[rronalddas]

The Vedas are supposedly that old

[leephillips]

Yes, but (without being a scholar of religion) I had always assumed that Hinduism was far older than its oldest surviving texts, just as Judaism, in some form, is older than whatever year we date the Torah to.

[fault1]

it depends on what you call 'hinduism'. it's one of the world's most heterodox religions and has absorbed a huge amount of cultural tradition from at least 300 languages.

The rig veda is probably what most people agree is one of the foundational texts of hinduism, but it dates to about 1500 BC.

However, the vedas probably absorbed a lot of earlier cultural tradition from the indus valley civilization, especially worship of Shiva-like deities. How much is however, debated.

just like mesopotamia, there was a lot of syncretism.

[phonypc]

My read is that it's the other way around. i.e. what one could reasonably call Judaism is a good deal younger than the Torah, Hinduism a good deal younger than the Vedas. There are of course traditions within the religions that go back to those writings and further, but take that to its extreme and they all presumably stem from some ur-religion.