Hinduism, the Vedas to 2020
Texts and teachers from the Rigveda to the 20th century, India’s census from 1951 to 2011, and the 5% of Hindus who lived outside India in 2020.
Britannica dates Hinduism’s oldest text, the Rigveda, to about 1500 BCE. In 2020 there were 1.18 billion Hindus, 14.9% of the world, according to the Pew Research Center; about 95% of them lived in India.
Texts and teachers
Britannica dates the Indus civilization to about 2600–1900 BCE. The texts dated here begin with the Vedas: the Rigveda about 1500 BCE, the thirteen known Upanishads mid-5th to 2nd century BCE and the Bhagavadgita perhaps 1st or 2nd century CE, in Britannica’s dating. The philosopher Shankara is dated 700–750 and Ramanuja c. 1017–1137. Reform movements followed under British rule: the Brahmo Samaj in 1828 and the Arya Samaj in 1875. Vivekananda spoke at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness was founded in New York in 1966 (Exhibit 22).
22. The dated texts, teachers and foundings charted run from the Rigveda, about 1500 BCE, to ISKCON in 1966
Source. “Indus civilization”; “Rigveda”; “Upanishad”; “Bhagavadgita”; “Shankara”; “Ramanuja” (summary); “Brahmo Samaj”; “Arya Samaj”; “Vivekananda”; Hare Krishna in the Twenty-First Century (excerpt)
Full sizeMethod. Dates as given by the cited source; several are ranges or traditional dates, and Britannica’s own pages differ on the Upanishads (see Limitations).
India’s census
India’s census has recorded religion since 1881, according to Pew; the most recent count is from 2011, and the census planned for 2021 was not held. Between the 1951 and 2011 counts, the Hindu share fell by 4.3 points and the Muslim share rose by 4.4, according to Pew’s analysis, which attributes most of the change to differences in fertility rather than conversion (Exhibit 23). Christians stayed between 2% and 3% throughout; Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains together stayed near 3%.
23. Hindus were 84.1% of India’s population in the 1951 census and 79.8% in 2011; Muslims rose from 9.8% to 14.2%
Source. Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of India, 2021, from the Census of India, 1951–2011.
Full sizeMethod. Census shares as published.
In Bangladesh the census shows a steeper fall in the Hindu share, from 22.1% in 1951 to 8.5% in 2011 (Exhibit 24). Pew reported the figures without assigning causes.
Source. Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of India, 2021, note 11, from census data.
Full sizeMethod. Census shares as published.
Outside India
Outside India, Pew counts 23.5 million Hindus in Nepal, 13.1 million in Bangladesh and 5.0 million in Pakistan for 2020. The number in the United States rose from 1.8 million in 2010 to 3.0 million, and the United Arab Emirates had 1.11 million and Saudi Arabia 0.81 million (Exhibit 25). Hindus were a majority only in India and Nepal (Exhibit 26).
25. India had 1.11 billion Hindus in 2020; Nepal, with 23.5 million, had the second most
Source. Pew Research Center, Religious Composition by Country, 2010–2020, rounded counts.
Full sizeMethod. India is left off the scale; its value is in the title.
Source. Pew Research Center, Religious Composition by Country, 2010–2020, percentages. Country shapes: Natural Earth.
Full sizeMethod. Outlined places have no estimate; Mauritius is too small to show at this scale.
Limitations (5)
- Unverified. Shares of Hindus by tradition (Vaishnava, Shaiva, Shakta, Smarta) are not charted: censuses do not ask, and the one global source found, the World Religion Database, is behind a subscription.
- Conflicting sources. The Upanishads: Britannica’s article dates the thirteen known Upanishads to the mid-5th to 2nd century BCE and its summary to “since 500 BC”.
- Conflicting sources. ISKCON: Britannica gives 1965, the year its founder arrived in the United States; Cambridge University Press gives 1966, the year of its founding in New York. Exhibit 22 uses 1966.
- Coverage. India has published no religion count since the 2011 census; Pew’s 2020 figures for India are estimates built on it.
- Method. Exhibit 25 leaves India off the scale so the other countries can be read.
Sources (4)
- Cambridge University Press: Hare Krishna in the Twenty-First Century (excerpt)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: “Indus civilization”; “Rigveda”; “Upanishad”; “Bhagavadgita”; “Shankara”; “Ramanuja” (summary); “Brahmo Samaj”; “Arya Samaj”; “Vivekananda”
- Natural Earth: Admin 0 country boundaries, 1:110m and 1:50m (via world-atlas 2.0.2)
- Pew Research Center: “How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020,” June 9, 2025; Religious Composition by Country, 2010–2020, dataset and country table, 2025 (updated Feb. 12, 2026); “Religious Composition of India,” Sept. 21, 2021 (Census of India, 1951–2011)
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