It is true there are many things common to 95%+ Hindus (e.g. polytheism, caste, belief in rebirth)

However Hindus traditionally have approached religion not as "Hindus", but through the medium of family, community, sampradAya

Hindu corporate identity is a 20th cen thing mostly https://twitter.com/raghman36/status/1354630055016550406

So when people say

"Oh, Hinduism is hard to define"

They have a point in that the attempt has not been made in the past. It is an attempt made in our times (last 200 years)

But it does not follow that Hindus don't share anything in common. Or that Hinduism cannot be defined

"Defining Hinduism" is a new preoccupation. Unlike say "defining" Islam, Judaism, Christianity

So yes, people laugh when attempts are made.

But it's actually not that impossible a task

We might have a generally accepted definition by the year 2100

This is the grand Hindu irony....

On one hand, Hinduism is the oldest of religions known to man - True

But it is also, in a different sense, the youngest religion. As it is getting "defined" in our times!

In sharp contrast, if you take religions like Christianity or Islam, the "codification" of the religion and the emergence of a "christian" or a "muslim" identity was contemporaneous with the birth of the religion itself

Hinduism is different in that the religion with its numerous common features shared by multitudes in the subcontinent has existed for millennia

But despite these admittedly immense commonalities, the emergence of a common "Hindu" identity is relatively new

Now many traditionalists will not agree with me here.

They will talk of Sayanacharya in the 14th cen who wrote his "Sarvadarshana Samgraha"

Or of the legend of Adi Shankara establishing the four maThs in the four corners of India

But even those attempts at synthesis represent at best a certain common identity that permeated the brahminical elites

Those AcAryas did not attempt to define Hinduism as a "broad" identity encompassing hundreds of millions (billion+ in our time)

The self awareness of Hindus as a "corporate" body commences in the 19th cen

With people like Bankim, Arumukha Navalar

Followed by Vivekananda

And of course developed in an unexpected direction by Savarkar

It is a work in progress. Not fully mature yet

Today, Hindus are a confused lot

At a subliminal level, they envy the "Abrahamics" for their clarity of mind, their strict "canons", and their "corporate" identity that sticks across continents

But they also despise them overtly. The rhetoric goes - "we Hindus aren't like you"

But Hindus "will" also standardize with time

Hinduism may be older than any of the Abrahamic religions

But it is catching up with the semitic faiths in aspects of organization, community building, historiography very very belatedly

Some amount of "standardization" has already happened.

Notice the remarkable rise of Bhagavad Gita in the broader public imagination in the last 200 years!

Sure BG was always a v v imp text

But not something on the bookshelf of every other educated Indian, which it is today

Keeping this broader historical trend in mind, I don't regard the "Trad" fanaticism in corners of Twitter that awful

I see this as part of the Hindu standardization drive

Am personally not involved / vested in this.

But I see it as a part of a broader historical process that will culminate in the formation of a Hindu "whole"

PS : I personally hail from a community that is big on "canon", "system", "standardization"

E.g. Most Sri-Vaishnavas have their canon clear.

Valmiki Ramayanam, Gita, Divya Prabandham, Paduka Sahasram etc

With respect to Pilgrimages : 108 Divya desams.

You don't see that in a lot of other Hindus. Who tend to be more fluid. "Open minded"

That will change.

A much larger % of Hindus will act and behave like Sri-Vaishnavas do by 2100.

Favoring strict canons, lists

Post-script : In an earlier tweet, I attributed Sarvadarshana Samgraha to Sayana in a hurry

It was written by Vidyaranya of course, his brother