Journal of religious culture = Journal für Religionskultur
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32
Among the World religions Sikh religion comparatively is young. Numerically also the followers of Sikh religions are not large. According to the Census of India in the grand total of India's population i.e. 6659, 2879, 8491, the total number of Sikhs is 13,078. 146 out of which 8,937.210 are living in the Panjab province of India and the remaining 4,1409936 are scattered in the rest of the country.[1] These figures do not include the Sikhs living in other countries like the U.K., Canada, USA and other Western and Eastern countries. As these fig-ures show percentwise Sikhs are less than 2%, but they are having a special place among their country people an account of their special characteristics i.e. very hard workers, technicalminded, adventurous nature and willing to embrace all kinds of work. Because of their adventurous and enthusiastic nature, today they are found almost all over the world. On account, of visible insignia given by Sikhs' tenth Guru which includes uncut hair (and use of turban) makes the Sikhs' presence felt in any place. - In this brief study of Sikh religion I will be limiting myself only with one area. I will be looking from the historical perspectives how the Sikh religion came into existence and its growth during the period of 1469 AD - 1703 AD. This period is the most important, because - all the development of Sikh religion belongs to this era only. ...
10
As both time and space at hand for this presentation is limited, therefore instead of a longer introductory note, here a move is made to deal with the given subject straight. In the second section the background both historical and theological is discussed, which win state the position of the inter-religious dialogue in India. The third section will deal with the involvement and experiences of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in the field of inter-religious dialogue. The fourth section deals with other living religions specially Islam. Finally in section five concluding remarks are given in the form of reflections and in section six, the notes and references are listed.
26
Well before, even centuries before the II Vatican Council there were a lot of theological ac-tivities in India in the context of the different religions, particularly in the context of Hindu-ism. But the Council’s articulations on the Church’s relation with the non-Christian religions gave a tremendous boost to the theological movement in India. Almost all theological reflec-tions in India began to situate themselves in the context of non-Christian religions, especially Hinduism. These theological reflections did not remain solely in the theological circles. They began to trickle down, perhaps hesitantly, into the official ecclesiastical circles. These ele-ments may be considered in the near future by the magisterium of the Church. The reflections in this article are mainly based on: 1. The II Vatican council’s and the post-consiliar magisterium’s teachings on the Church’s relation with the non-Christian religions. 2. "Instrumentum Laboris" which was prepared taking into consideration the theological ac-tivities in Asia, and of course in India, and was published on Feb. 1998, in preparation for the Special Assembly for Asia of the Synod of Bishops. 3. Some of the interventions of the Bishops, especially from India, on the floor of the special assembly held on 19th April to 14th May 1998.
27-06
Living in India, which is not yet linked into the electronic autobahn at quite the screaming pace of the rest of the world, I received my information about this conference in two barely legible faxes, which arrived more than three weeks apart and presented me with two different titles for my paper. The first was "Aspects and Values of Buddhism That Are Attractive to Peoples in the West" and the second was that printed in the conference program, "Aspects and Values of Buddhism for Women in the West." These are rather different topics, but in another way they are not so different. ...
20
Weekly "VIVEK" recently conducted a survey of the opinions of its readers. One of the readers wrote, 'I am a devotee of Shri Ram; I belong to a certain caste; the concept of Hindutva may be all right for you; but how is this Hindutva beneficial to my caste?" This question may be regarded as either very basic or childish. It is basic because its answer devolves on the proper concept of Hin-dutva and it is childish because it displays the ignorance of the reader of the fact that Hindutva encompasses the well-being of all the different section of people. A person like me, having imbibed the concept of Hindutva in its totality, would be quick to answer that different casts cannot have any special consideration for them. Hindutva is a casteless concept. In fact the removal of caste consciousness and caste identities is the raison d'etre of Hindutva. Since Hindutva incorporates the well-being of every single Hindu the question of any special consideration of any particular caste does not arise. Of course this is simple for a person like me who is steeped in the Hindutva concept. It may not be so simple for someone who has come up in the present political environment. Serious consideration must be given to Hindutva against the background of pre-sent atmosphere of caste consciousness. This would narrow and finally eliminate the chasm between ideals and practice. Such a chasm would be a great impedi-ment to the general acceptance of true nationalism.
88
After years and years of persecution, we can say that the continuing and all-embracing revival of church life of the Russian Orthodox Church is going on and the general tendency to the development of all aspects of her diocese, parish and social activities is becoming more and more vivid. There have been some most important events – landmarks of starting the new epoch of Russian Orthodox Church: 1988 – Celebration of the Festival of Thousand Years of Baptizing Rus. 2000 – The Archpriests Council: Canonization of the Tsarist Family of Nicolas II; Attitude to the other Christian Confessions; Social Doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church. There are 128 dioceses now (instead of 67 ones in 1989) and 19000 parishes (instead of 689 ones in 1989) in the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church. ...
89
Almost two thousand years ago the question was asked, "And who is my neighbor?", and Jesus answered it with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10. 29-37), and so the idea of charity was inseparably linked with Christianity. However, it is almost a common opinion that Western Christianity and Russian Orthodoxy have quite different approaches to this item. According to that opinion, the Catholic Church had more concern about one's bodily needs and explicit welfare, while the Russian Orthodoxy paid less attention to the ''explicit man" and took more care of "the inner man". The Russian Orthodox tradition - though it has its own method in ascetism, apotheosis, general and private prayer - pays too little attention to the needy and deprived members of society. To raise the question about mollification of the deprived people's torments and to see it as a way towards the Kingdom of God seems alien to the very essence of Russian Orthodoxy. Did the Russian Orthodox Church ever refuse to help beggars and cripples? Or do the facts still show another picture? Since when did Russian Orthodox Church start to neglect that task? Which reasons have proved that charity has been unable to flourish in the Orthodox Church and especially Russian Orthodox Church as flourished her spirituality and arts: icon painting, choral singing, and church architecture? Let us have a brief outlook on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church and find out if there are any reasons to explain the reason.
70
Untouchability and inter-caste relations in rural India : the case of southern Tamil villages
(2004)
Justice and equality are the two subjects often talked about by most of the nationalists and leaders of various political and ideological streams across the world including India. India was at the fore-front in condemning racial discrimination particularly apartheid and also the influence of super powers) on the internal affairs of independent nations. Her commitment to secure its citizens' freedom, justice, equality and fraternity is reflected in the very preamble of the Indian Constitution. Towards achieving these challenging goals, special provisions have also been made in the Constitution to protect and promote the interests of the most oppressed section of Indian society - traditionally known as Untouchables and Constitutionally as the Scheduled Castes. These provisions are expected to alter the given unjust distribution of power (political and economic) and status (social) among different sections of people and thereby transform India into an egalitarian society. Given India's unequivocal commitment to secure its citizens these noble ideals - particularly the most exploited and pilloried section of India -, we shall attempt here to understand Indian villages, which host over 80 per cent of the Indian population, from the point of view of whether or not these villages patronise the institution of caste which is in contravention of these ideals or whether there are these little republics ideal for realising the said goals and thus to be preserved as they are as claimed by many social reformers including Mahatma Gandhi. In the process, we shall also address the question of how caste has remained unchanged, how it controls social interaction between higher and lower caste groups and accordingly perpetuates unequal control over power and status. And most importantly we shall also understand whether all the Scheduled Castes (lower castes) treat their members as equals or there is hierarchy, discrimination and practice of untouchability even among them.