“Yes, that is what is fascinating to me too! I wonder if it was the traditional British influence, or the missionaries to India, because Hinduism seems to ‘absorb’ pretty much every other religion into itself.”
Oh, I think its quite the opposite. I believe those practices have pre-Christian roots and are indigenous to the cultures they arose in. These sorts of practices are examples of what the Fathers called “spori” or seeds of the True Faith which they, and we for that matter, saw in virtually all pre-Christian religions.
IIRC, Thomas (the Doubting one) supposedly went to India and was a missionary there after Jesus ascended—but Hinduism is about 5000 years old, from what I understand?