2. Jerome David Salinger,
American novelist and short story writer, was
born in New York in 1919 to a prosperous Jewish
importer of Kosher cheese and his Scotch-Irish
wife. He attended prep schools during his
childhood and was later sent to Valley Forge
Military Academy, which he attended from 1934-
1936. He attended NYU and Columbia University
and began submitting short stories for
publication. By 1940 he had done so, publishing
his stories in several periodicals including the
Saturday Evening Post and Story.

3. Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short
stories while in secondary school, and published several
in Story magazine in the early 1940s before serving in
World War II. In 1948 his critically acclaimed story "A
Perfect Day for Bananafish" appeared in The New Yorker
magazine, which became home to much of his later
work. In 1951 his novel The Catcher in the Rye was an
immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent
alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist
Holden Caulfield was influential, especially among
adolescent readers. The novel remains widely read and
controversial, selling around 250,000 copies a year.

4. The success of The Catcher in the Rye led to
public attention and scrutiny: Salinger became
reclusive, publishing new work less frequently. He
followed Catcher with a short story collection,
Nine Stories (1953), a volume containing a
novella and a short story, Franny and Zooey
(1961), and a volume containing two novellas,
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and
Seymour: An Introduction (1963). His last
published work, a novella entitled "Hapworth 16,
1924", appeared in The New Yorker on June 19,
1965.

5. JD Salinger was a Jewish Catholic by birth,
but as an adult did not follow any of these
family faiths. He was more interested in
Scientology, Hinduism and Buddhism.
Deeply touched by the religious scriptures of
the East, he practiced Zen Buddhism, with
its importance on removing ego to gain
personal detachment and experience the
oneness of creation ."Hinduism seems to
have been especially important in his life."

6. Salinger & Ramakrishna Paramhamsa
Salinger became particularly attracted to
Hinduism after reading Swami Nikhilananda
and Joseph Campbell's translation of The
Gospels of Sri Ramakrishna, a profound
insight into the various facets of life as
described by the Hindu mystic. He was highly
influenced by Sri Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa's explanation of Advaita
Vedanta Hinduism advocating various Hindu
beliefs with emphasis on karma,
reincarnation, celibacy for the seekers truth
and enlightenment, and detachment from
worldliness.

7. Salinger's Sense of Mortality
Salinger, who passed away on January 28,
2010 at the age of 91, perhaps wished his
body cremated, almost like Hindus do in
Varanasi, rather than buried under a
tombstone. He said, "Boy, when you're dead,
they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do
die somebody has sense enough to just
dump me in the river or something. Anything
except sticking me in a goddam cemetery.
People coming and putting a bunch of
flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all
that crap. Who wants flowers when you're
dead? Nobody." Sadly, Salinger's epitaph
won't have any mention of this wish!

8. Hinduism is the predominant religion
of the Indian subcontinent, and one
of its indigenous religions. Hinduism
includes Shaivism, Vaishnavism and
Śrauta among numerous other
traditions. It also includes historical
groups, for example the Kapalikas.
Among other practices and
philosophies, Hinduism includes a
wide spectrum of laws and
prescriptions of "daily morality"
based on karma, dharma, and
societal norms. Hinduism is a
conglomeration of distinct
intellectual or philosophical points of
view, rather than a rigid common set
of beliefs.

9. Hinduism is formed of diverse
traditions and has no single
founder. Among its direct roots is
the historical Vedic religion of
Iron Age India and, as such,
Hinduism is often called the
"oldest living religion" or the
"oldest living major religion" in
the world.
One orthodox classification of
Hindu texts is to divide into Śruti
("revealed") and Smriti
("remembered") texts. These
texts discuss theology,
philosophy, mythology, rituals
and temple building among other
topics. Major scriptures include
the Vedas, Upanishads, Purāṇas,
Hinduism, with about one billion followers, is Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa,
the world's third largest religion, after Bhagavad Gītā and Āgamas.
Christianity and Islam.

10. Concept of God
God in Hinduism
Hinduism is a diverse system of thought with
beliefs spanning monotheism, polytheism,
panentheism, pantheism, monism, and
atheism among others; and its concept of
God is complex and depends upon each
individual and the tradition and philosophy
followed. It is sometimes referred to as
The Rig Veda, the oldest scripture and the henotheistic (i.e., involving devotion to a
mainstay of Hindu philosophy does not take single god while accepting the existence of
a restrictive view on the fundamental others), but any such term is an
question of God and the creation of overgeneralization.
universe. It rather lets the individual seek
and discover answers in the quest of life.
Nasadiya Sukta (Creation Hymn) of the Rig
Veda thus says:
Who really knows?
Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced? Whence is this
creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the
creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?

11.  Most Hindus believe that the spirit or soul
— the true "self" of every person, called
the ātman — is eternal.[88] According to
the monistic/pantheistic theologies of
Hinduism (such as Advaita Vedanta
school), this Atman is ultimately indistinct
from Brahman, the supreme spirit.
Hence, these schools are called non-
dualist . The goal of life, according to the
Advaita school, is to realize that one's
ātman is identical to Brahman, the
supreme soul. The Upanishads state that
whoever becomes fully aware of the
ātman as the innermost core of one's
own self realizes an identity with
Brahman and thereby reaches moksha
(liberation or freedom)

12. Rituals
The vast majority of Hindus engage in
religious rituals on a daily basis. Most
Hindus observe religious rituals at home. but
observation of rituals greatly vary among
regions, villages, and individuals. Devout
Hindus perform daily chores such as
worshiping at dawn after bathing (usually at
a family shrine, and typically includes
lighting a lamp and offering foodstuffs
before the images of deities), recitation from
religious scripts, singing devotional hymns,
meditation, chanting mantras, reciting
scriptures etc. A notable feature in religious
ritual is the division between purity and
pollution

13. . Religious acts presuppose some degree of
impurity or defilement for the
practitioner, which must be overcome or
neutralized before or during ritual
procedures. Purification, usually with
water, is thus a typical feature of most
religious action. Other characteristics
include a belief in the efficacy of sacrifice
and concept of merit, gained through the
performance of charity or good works, that
will accumulate over time and reduce
sufferings in the next world. Vedic rites of
fire-oblation (yajna) are now only occasional
practices, although they are highly revered in
theory. In Hindu wedding and burial
ceremonies, however, the Yana and chanting
of Vedic mantras are still the norm. The
rituals, upacharas, change with time. For
instance, in the past few hundred years
some rituals, such as sacred dance and
music offerings in the standard Sodas
Upacharas set prescribed by the Agama
Shastra, were replaced by the offerings of
rice and sweets.