Examples of non-Christian Moral systems.

Buddha's version of path to enlightment focuses on the practical life and the suffering the human being goes through. while gita offers a much broader concept.he himself said that he could only show the way but to follow it was upto a person and his path was not the only way.
and by the way, if you are looking at words from God himself, then why not read Gita.the Hindu's believe that it came from Lord Krishna himself.

well ,
i thought i would point out that Hinduism,(from which Buddhism derives a lot of its concepts) has been around for longer than christianity and has still a large following in the asian continent, has other ways of following the path of enlightment which are not as hard as buddhism to follow.
hinduism knows that it is difficult for an average man with lots of practical responsibility to follow the strict principles of self control and meditation, especially in today's world, and describes alternative ways. Like for instance, 1 out of the 12 months will be used as a month of atonement and people generally practice abstinence from meat, alcohol, sex in this month and practice meditation. there are many other paths. hindu's belive there is a time for everything. hence they divide the age of man into 4 phase. in the infancy stage(1-9yrs) the child is expected to be child and he learns from his family the values of life. 9-21 yrs is when you are expected to gain knowledge. in old days this was the timeyou would learn from the holy text, learn to fight , learn the laws. Early on, the knowledge was not with held from females, but later on MCP's prevented female education. 21-45/50 yrs you were expected to be a man of society. raise a family, work and try and dedicate some time to follow the scriptues. but your moral duty was to ensure that your family was taken care of. once you were past 45.. basically an old retired man/woman, you could decicate time extensively to the scriptures, and try to follow the path to salvation.
hinduism, in MHO, is a religion which allows for individual freedom and space as it never says follow only this God or this way. it just says
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE...

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Atonement is a phrase that I associate with the OT sacrificial system when Jews offered sacrifices for their sins.
Is the hindu month of atonement to purify them from their sins as well?

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That is really a difficult question to answer. But according to the Vedas which are the most ancient Hindu scriptures, you have to purify yourself to reach nirvana. this can be interpreted in the most loose terms as purification from sins. but it can also be interpreted as the month to try to come closer to the truth. Hindus, at least the vedantic hindus, believe that we all have th e power to become one with the Lord(or the Brahman)which resides within us and hence by meditating we can focus within ourselves and find the "Brahman". this is also a belief of Buddhism and to certain extent Tao.

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Do the Hindus' have a compiled holy book of scriptures? If so, what is the name? Is the Hindu path to salvation "living righteously" in other words, basically a more and more perfect morality?

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The original hindu text is the rigveda but eseentially there are 4 text each offering advice on different things. Then most hindus also follow the gita, which they believe is recited by Lord krishna himself.
and to answer the next question, no. Hinduism allows for a man to make mistakes and believes that not all men can lead a very holistic life. and hence there are very different ways to achieve nirvana.
Buddhism publicized the 8 fold path as Buddha believed that life's suffering can only be alleviated by following the most pure life. Not all paths of Hinduism are that strict, though most cases there are lots of rule.

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Finally, what do the Hindus believe they are being saved from?

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most hindus believe that life is an eternal cycle of life and death and thats what they hope to be liberated from.

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Do you mean in the sense of freedom of beliefs since there was a caste system? Or did the caste system come about later as a perversion of the original Hindu scriptures?

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you hit the nail on the head. the caste system arose because of few men who liked the power. the old scriptures outline the caste system but it was not a rigid rule, people were put into castes based on what work they performed, eg. a teacher was the highest a brahmin, a warrior the second rung and so on. but there were no hard rules that said you could not change your profession and hence your caste. that came later on when a few brahmin did not want to give up their power.