Lesson video

Hello, I am Mr. Hutchinson and welcome to our re-lesson all about Hinduism.

Now, over the last seven lessons, we have learned tonnes.

You know lots about this ancient religion now.

In today's lesson, we're going to take a moment - we're not going to learn anything new.

We're going to take a moment and collect all of that together in our minds, organise it, sequence it, and structure it into a plan ready to write an essay.

That's the plan for today and you're going to do a great job.

Over the next few lessons, you'll write out a full essay where you'll put down everything that you know in writing about Hinduism just to show how you've become a master of this subject and also to help to organise it in your own mind so that you remember it forever and ever.

Can't wait to get started.

So our question for today is: Can I plan an essay about Hinduism and I bet that you can.

You will need some paper today because you're going to need to write down your plan.

You'll need something to write with and you're going to need to be remembering lots of information so, make sure your brain is switched on.

If you would like to, what you could do now is just pause the video and read back through all of your notes, all of the work that you've completed through this sequence of learning.

That would be a really good idea because it would make planning much quicker and easier.

So if you need to collect your equipment, or go back and read through your notes, just pause the video and do that now.

Awesome.

So we're ready to get started.

So, the first thing we're going to do is just go through what exactly an essay is.

This is what we're going to be doing.

So, let's get clear on what we mean when we say we're writing an essay.

You're then going to draw a table that will help you to plan your essay and structure your ideas.

This is a really useful skill because throughout your schoolwork and lots of other work that you do, you'll need to write long sort of pieces of work and a key skill is thinking about how you plan and structure those.

And so I'm going to show you a strategy for that.

You'll then have a chance to plan the first six paragraphs of your essay.

So, what do I mean when I say we're writing an essay? Well, an essay is just any piece of writing, particularly a sort of long piece of writing.

So, over a page and it's about one particular subject - one factual subject.

You can write essays about all sorts of things.

You can write an essay about sharks.

You can write an essay about the First World War, the Amazon Rainforest, Mediaeval Monarchs, or Buddhism.

Any area or special interest, anything that you know a lot about, you can communicate all of that knowledge through an essay.

So, this is an example of a section of an essay about mediaeval monarchs, written by a child in year four, and it just shows how those key facts are written out clearly and organised into paragraphs.

And that's what you're going to be aiming to do today.

The first thing you need to do is draw a table that looks like this.

So, it should have a few different sections.

It splits up into three columns.

The first column just says which paragraph or section because you might write more than one paragraph for each section.

So, you know when you're writing that bit what the content will be.

The second column has that key information.

So, all of the different things you'll be explaining in writing in nice full sentences, but in your plan it only has to be in note form.

And then the last column is for key vocabulary because throughout our sequence of lessons, we learned lots of new words - specific vocabulary to Hinduism.

It's really important that we include those within our essay.

You probably need about 8-10 lines for each row.

And it's best to get that drawn out before we get started.

You'll need six different sections.

So, six rows- one for each paragraph.

So, pause the video.

Using a pen or a pencil and a ruler, just draw out your table, copying this one here with all of the different sections ready to go.

Super! Table in front of you ready to get started.

So, our first paragraph and each - I said paragraph, but like I said it could be a section, but the first part of your essay is going to be all about how Buddhism, sorry how Hinduism began.

Hinduism is our religion this course.

How Hinduism began.

So, this was our first lesson and the different sections of the essay, to make it easier, the different sections are going to map onto the different lessons.

So, the first section of your essay which will probably be a paragraph, maybe more, will be about the first lesson.

Second section will be about the second lesson.

So our first lesson was all about Hinduism.

First thing I'd like you to do is just think about some of the key vocabulary that you included that we discussed when talking about the start of Hinduism.

So, I might talk about how it originated in the Indus valley region, near the River Indus.

Take a moment, pause the video, jot down all of the key vocabulary you can remember that has to do with the origins of the religion of Hinduism.

So pause the video and fill that in now.

Great work.

So, this is the vocab that I would include.

I would talk about the Indus valley.

I would talk about how that civilization, that culture, the Aryan culture who were from the north, migrated down about 3000 BCE.

Then The Vedas or the knowledge, the different sages who were already in the Indus Valley civilization started to have that knowledge written down into The Vedas, the Vedic scripts and that that was probably about 1200-200 BCE.

But the Hindu remains an oral tradition.

It's not like other religions that have one holy book, one holy scripture.

It's an oral tradition and the knowledge is passed down orally.

And that the exact pronunciation was really important.

Now you can see I've also drawn a few little pictures that might help to remind me of the key information.

So, I'd like you to fill in this key information section here.

I've given you a few different ideas of things that we've discussed.

For example, the timeline, and the Vedic scripts.

So, either jot some pictures down, but also you can jot down some notes in that section.

It doesn't have to be full sentences.

It might be prompted by that key vocabulary and each of those will be a little kernel, a little nugget, a little spark of something you will then write about within that section.

Just jot in down in bullet points, in note form.

So, take a moment and pause the video, cast your mind back and try and remember all the different things that we discussed.

So that when you come to write this section, it will be super easy because you'll just think, "Oh I've got this plan here with loads of bullet points.

Start writing by sentences, turning those bullet points into sentences." It's worth taking a bit of time here to jot those ideas down to make writing the essay a doddle.

So pause the video and fill in your key information section now.

Great work! So let me show you what I would put in and you can add to your list so feel free to pause the video, and add in anything that you've missed, and if I speak about something you've already gotten, give yourself a tic so that you know that that's an important thing to include.

So I'd talk about how Hinduism originated in the Indus Valley near the River Indus So you can see that I'm using my key vocab to help me.

There was the Aryan migration, that the Aryans are connected to the Vegas, possibly they were the ones that wrote them down.

It began as an oral tradition and it relied on that exact pronunciation.

So, it's been passed down.

The Hindu masters demanded exact pronunciation so that it could be memorised and preserved.

I want to talk about that Vedic period.

Exactly when it was and that's one of the key features of an essay that it has precise, specific facts.

It's not just talking about general, it has those precise, specific facts that show that you know this period and this topic inside out.

So, lets move on to our next section now and our next section will be all about dharma.

So we spent a lesson talking about dharma and how dharma influences how Hindus live.

So, I'm going to ask you to complete both sections this time, the key vocabulary and the key information with all of your key vocab that you would like to include and all of that key information.

Feel free to use your notes, go back and check your notes is an absolutely fine thing to do.

But make sure that that section of your plan is nicely filled out to help you write your essay.

And then I'll show you what I would include in each section so you can compare and add to yours.

Great work! Let's see what you got and see if it's similar to what I got.

So in the key vocab I would talk about how dharma, or at least the idea of it, is the power that drives and supports the universe.

And Hindus believe that there's sva-dharma, or self-dharma and there's another belief that there's a sort of caste system.

Those four different castes of the Brahmans, or the priests and the teachers, the Kshatriyas, the warriors and the rulers, the Vaishyas, the traders and the Shudras, the sort of farm workers or basic workers and then there was also at the bottom controversially the Dalits or the untouchables or the outcasts.

And how this is still a controversial topic now within India and many see it as very outdated, and reject the caste system, especially the idea that you can be born into a caste and that you shouldn't mix with other castes.

But it does still within some cultures and some regions and traditions maintain a position of sort of authority and is followed by some.

So, still a controversial area.

But the social dharma or sanatana dharma, that's followed by more Hindus and is more influential for most Hindus and that's the idea of different sorts of duties that drive your behaviour.

Following the sorts of duties that power the universe.

Those are behaviours like honesty and working hard and not harming other living creatures.

So, I might jot some other different ideas here some different pictures that just remind me of these different parts and I can also put it into bullet points.

So, make sure you've got the specific vocab and also you've got some bullet points explaining exactly what you'll write about within this section.

Okay.

Section three will be about Hindu beliefs about karma, samsara, and Moksha.

Three more very, very important fundamental core beliefs of Hinduism.

So again, take a moment, jot down all the key vocab in this part of your plan and also the key information and some people do it different ways.

I've been doing it vocab, then information.

Some people like to jot down everything they can remember in the key information in bullet points and then add in the vocab.

Some people like to start with the key vocab because that reminds them of what they need to write about.

Your choice, it's your essay, you're planning it.

But fill out both of those sections now, so pause the video and make sure you've got plenty in both columns.

Great work! So, in the key vocab, you might here talk about the idea of atman, or the soul, this sort of spark of the divine, that spiritual being that's in all living things.

This idea of samsara being the ongoing cycle of life.

Birth, and rebirth.

There's the lure of karma.

That every action has some sort of a consequence and you can hold good karma, or bad karma based on your actions.

And that your karma will influence your next rebirth.

And eventually if you hold enough good karma, you can break out of that samsara, break out of the endless cycle of birth and rebirth and achieve Moksha that sort of spiritual realisation, freedom, becoming one with Brahma.

You might remember as well that linked to these ideas is the Hindu practise of cremation and the idea that cremating bodies can release the spirit as quickly as possible.

So I just sketched that cycle diagram with Moksha included there.

And here you can see some of the bullet points just developed a little bit based on the vocabulary.

So if you need to pause, and add to your notes, you can to make sure you've got a great plan and writing's going to be really easy when you write this essay.

So, we're moving on to the next three paragraphs now.

If you haven't already, make sure that you've got a table set out there, with the sections for the new sections, those new rows for the new sections you might have already had all six there, but you need to make sure that you've got a table for the next three sections.

You're working really hard already, you've already got a great plan for the first three sections.

Let's get these next three sections done and then we're going to be ready to write in the next lesson.

So paragraph 4 is going to be all about Brahman.

Who is Brahman? What is Brahman? And you might talk about how Brahman is the idea of the supreme spirit, that Brahman can take many forms, have many avatars, but the Brahman is everything, the entirety of reality and the spirit of the universe.

So, fill out your two sections, your key vocab, and key information, as usual and then I'll show you what I put in each of those sections so that you can add to your plan if you need to.

Okay great work.

So, I talked about the Trimurti, those three most important gods with the key functions within Hinduism and they are Brahma, not to be confused with Brahman.

They're two different ideas.

Brahman is the supreme spirit, Brahma is the creator god.

There was Vishnu and also Shiva.

There's also this concept of Shakti, which is this sort of the feminine aspects of god, that sort of strength and some of the key feminine gods, Saraswati, Lakshmi, Parvati, and Durga, and they are sometimes associated with the male gods as well as consorts and sometimes just stand on their own and worshipped on their own by Hindus today.

I've drawn a few pictures of the Trimurti and Parvati there.

And just some of these ideas, based on my bullet points sketched out into those different bullet points.

Paragraph Five.

We talked about what are the key stories within Hinduism.

The story of Shiva and the goddess Ganga.

If we're talking about why Hinduism is unique, which is our essay, the story of Shiva and Ganga is unique to the religion of Hinduism.

So this would be a great story to retell and to discuss the importance of, within your essay.

So what happened in the story of Shiva and the Ganges or Ganga? Fill in both of your sections.

Pause the video, and fill in both of those sections now.

Great work! You're doing really well.

We're almost there.

This is paragraph five.

We've only got one more after this one.

So, Shiva and Ganga, you might talk about the Goddess Ganga and the Ganges which thought originally to be in heaven.

Through Lord Shiva, the Ganga came down to Earth through Lord Shiva and his matted hair.

The Ganges is therefore considered a holy river.

Lord Shiva's hair was able to stop that force because otherwise it would have destroyed the Earth.

And you might want to retell that whole story of King Singhara and his 60,000 sons.

So, just develop some of those bullet points there.

Just explaining the different parts of the story.

Okay.

We're almost there.

Last section.

Well done.

You're doing so well and I promise you it will all be worth it in the next lesson when you got a great plan that will make writing your essay much easier.

So we talked a little bit about some of the important texts of Hinduism and we've obviously looked at some of the Vedas, but we also talked about some of the Smriti or the remembered texts of Hinduism.

So, what can you remember about those different important texts that we discussed.

From lesson six, see what you remember and use your notes if you need to.

Fill out both of those sections there.

So you might talk about Smriti or sort of remembering and it's the sages remembering what's happening.

So you often get these sort of epic stories and it's this smriti remembering those wise sages remembering what happened.

Some of the most important texts, and most ancient texts, The Ramayanas and within that is contained the epic poem of Rama and Sita.

There was another ancient text, perhaps the most popular, especially within the UK, The Mahabharata.

And within The Mahabharata, there is the Bhagavad Gita, which is said to contain the teachings of Lord Krishna.

And he gave that message to the warrior Arjuna that he must go to war.

He must fulfil his dharma.

There are some other texts, The Puranas.

And those are a collection of poems about adoration to the gods: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, and Krishna who's the avatar of Vishnu.

The human avatar of Vishnu.

You might want to retell some of those stories that are contained within those ancient texts.

And you can pause the video and have a look at my different notes there to add to yours, if you'd like to.

Great work! You've done so well.

I know that you've been writing a lot.

Your hand is probably hurting.

But I do promise that it will be really worth it because at the end because now you've got an amazing plan and when we write our essay in the next lesson, that's going to be something easy for you to do because you're just going to tic off the different notes and you'll very, very quickly have a really impressive, comprehensive piece of writing to show off to everybody and to show to yourself just how much you know about this religion that we've been learning all about.

Well done.

If you'd like to share your plan, please do feel free to do that.

You can do it in the normal way.

Well done for working so hard.

And I will see you in our next lesson.

There's still a quiz recapping everything, even though there's no new learning today, recapping some of our previous learning.

So don't forget to complete that.

I'm sure that you'll ace it.

And I'll see you in our next lesson.