Religion in India

Goddess Meenakshi with consort Shiva and brother Vishnu inside the Meenakshi Hindu Temple in Madurai, Tamil Nadu

Muslim men in an Islamic library in Delhi

St. Philomena's Cathedral in Mysore, Karnataka is one of the tallest churches in Asia

A Sikh pilgrim at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab

Religion in India is characterised by a diversity of religious beliefs and practices. Throughout India's history, religion has been an important part of the country's culture and the Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of four of the world's major religions, namely, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, which are collectively known as native Indian religions or Dharmic religions and represent approx. 83% of the total population of India.

India has the largest number of followers of Hinduism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, and the Bahá'í Faith in the world. It further hosts the third most followers of Islam, behind Indonesia and Pakistan, and the ninth largest population of Buddhists.^[1]

The Preamble to the Constitution of India states that India is a secular state,^[2][3] and the Constitution of India has declared the right to freedom of religion to be a fundamental right.^[4]

According to the 2011 census, 79.8% of the population of India follows Hinduism, 14.2% Islam, 2.3% Christianity, 1.7% Sikhism, 0.7% Buddhism and 0.4% Jainism. Zoroastrianism, Sanamahism and Judaism also have an ancient history in India, and each has several thousands of Indian adherents. India has the largest population of people adhering to both Zoroastrianism (i.e. Parsis and Iranis) and the Bahá'í Faith in the world;^[5] these religions are otherwise largely exclusive to their native Iran where they originated from. Several tribal religions are also present in India, such as Donyi-Polo, Sanamahism, Sarnaism, Niamtre, and others.