Harsh Gupta 'Madhusudan'

“An idea like Christianity or Islam was all but inevitable. As human civilisation grew more complex, as polities grew larger, as economies became more interconnected it was a matter of time before someone got people under the banner of “One Only Revealed God vs False Gods” (which is very different from monism or henotheism).

It was tried first in ancient Egypt, quickly buried, there were some signs of it in Iran, then it rose again with Moses, this time successfully though in a localised format, and finally proliferated through two world religions.

Earlier, people were (obviously) fighting each other since time immemorial but religion per se was not weaponised. Gods were all around you, even within you — there was no idea of a Jealous Father Sky-Figure condemning idolatry and Other Gods which were all deemed Satanic.”
― Harsh Gupta 'Madhusudan'

“The writers on Dharma Shastra meant by ‘dharma’ not a creed or religion but a mode of life or a code of conduct, which regulated a person’s work and activities as a member of society and as an individual and was intended to bring about the gradual development of a person and to enable him to reach what was deemed to be the goal of human existence.”
― Harsh Madhusudan, A New Idea of India: Individual Rights in a Civilisational State