Journal of religious culture = Journal für Religionskultur
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95
Methodology and Objects: Methodologically, from a diachronic linguistics perspective regarding the concept of the shin, spirits in folk belief in China and neighbouring cultures, we compare texts that comprise meanings a) historically in the local language and b) compared to the meanings of equivalent terms in languages of other cultures. Comparing sources of this belief, we examine if and how the shin belief can serve as an example of communication across cultural borders including practical forms of worshipping. Argumentation: We argue that the concept of the shin is across cultural and national borders a result from folk culture transcending political or cultural borders transmitted via migration of ethnic groups. Although similar, mind concepts of different cultures and groups never melted; evidence for this independence gives the Islamic distinctive separation between shin and jinn in this area in the Chinese Quran and other spiritual Chinese writings. On the other hand, the practice of worshipping is similar. Conclusions: A spiritual concept like shin varies in practice in different areas. Central Asia as the melting pot of Chinese and Middle East culture shows the cultural practice of Shamanism with shin belief, complex mind concepts like in Daoism, and religions incorporating shin belief (Islam). Observed changes in the particular local languages show the continuity of the local set of meanings. Multilingual and multicultural areas such as Central Asia rather integrate new words to increase their thesaurus with new meanings than to change the set of previous existing meanings in the languages. Arabic as a language of conquerors in Central Asia is a typical example for such a language that serves as a tool to set up new meanings.
27-11
Jetsun Lochen Rinpoche was presumably born in 1865 and died in 1951 and was one of the most famous female religious masters in traditional Tibet. Among her various religious roles were those of pilgrim, professional singer of manis (mani pa), healer, a messenger from the land of the dead (‘das log), yogini, nun, lineage-holder, visionary, performer of miracles (siddha), emanation, treasure-finder, religious teacher and head of a nunnery. In short, she had all the signs and charisma of a holy person. She was popularly known as Jetsun or Ani Lochen (A ne Lo chen), and among her several other names Rigdzin Chönyi Sangmo (Rig ’dzin chos nyid bzang mo) was frequently used. The main textual source regarding Jetsun Lochen Rinpoche’s life is her autobiography (271 folios). Lochen was repeatedly requested by her disciples to tell her life-story, but only in 1937, when she was requested by Drubchen Dawa Dorje Rinpoche (Grub chen Zla ba rdo rje rin po che), whom she recognized as the reincarnation of her root-lama Pema Gyatso (Padma rgya mtsho, 1829-1889/90), did she consent. Although she started telling her life-story in 1937, she abandoned the project and apparently did not take it up again until about twelve years later, in 1949, when she again was requested by Drubchen Dawa Dorje and four named diciples. Lochen told the story of her life up to the 25th day of the 11th month of 1949. The nun-teacher Thinlay (rGan ‘Phrin las) wrote the draft and it was completed by Dawa Dorje Rinpoche. ...
62
First, why I have avoided to use in this paper the expression ‘the Composite Culture’, which even is used in our Constitution of India to describe unified one culture of our country.1 It is because such a demand is not only against one of the basic realities of our Indian way of life, it also goes against the divine will, which was and is behind this created world with different shades and colours. In this regard the following observation made by Dr. Ram Singh is also noteworthy: It is debatable issue whether there is a separate entity called “composite culture” of India, or it is merely the interaction of various cultures which, instead of resulting into an integrated culture, are still in a position to maintain their separate identities. Beside what Dr. Ram Singh says, the reality is that multi or pluralism is part of our Indian or even Asian way of life. It is quite a different thing, if some of us are not willing to accept this truth. But it is still there, in the form of multi-cultures, multi-languages, multireligions and multiethnicities. Therefore the question of ‘composite culture’ is not only debatable, but also a doubtful principle, unless we are willing to take it as an eschatology reality. I do not intend to deal with this point in detail here, because of the time factor. But we may be able to come back to this question of ‘composite culture, in our discussion if you will wish to do so. ...
75
A fresh look at the understanding of charity : with special reference to the present Indian practice
(2005)
The discussion of this paper is divided in two parts: Present understanding of Charity and a fresh look at the understanding of Charity particularly with a reference to the present Indian practice. As the major religious and theological perspectives specially from the Christian and the Islamic point of views are being dealt by other presentations in this seminar, therefore, the discussion here is limited only first, to the dictionary based linguistic meaning of Charity as understood in three main English speaking contexts and then (second), the Charity as practised in the Indian context. The new and revised deluxe edition of the Webster’s Encyclopaedic Unbridged Dictionary of the English Language has given the following meanings of Charity: 1)charitable actions, as almsgiving or performing other benevolent actions of any sort for the needy with no expectation of material reward: to devote ones life to charity, 2)something given to a person or persons in need; aims: she asked for work not charity, 3) a charitable act or work 4) a charitable fund, foundation, or institution: He left his estate to one of his charities, 5) benevolent feeling, esp. towards those in need or in disfavour: she looked so poor that we fed her out of charity, and 6) Christian love; agape 1 Cor. 13. The Chamber English Dictionary, the meanings of Charity gives as: universal love (N.T.): the disposition to think favourably of others, and do them good almsgiving: a usu. non profit-making foundation, institution, or cause, devoted to caring for those in need of help etc. According to Concise Oxford Dictionary Charity means: an organisation set up to provide help and raise money for those in need, the voluntary giving of money those in need, tolerance in judging others and love of humankind, typically in Christian context. These three set of meanings of Charity, represent the three English regions or contexts: American (Webster), Scottish (Chamber) and English (Oxford). The common important element in all for these three is, the Christian understanding of Charity, because all the three directly have referred to the Biblical usages of Charity in some forms. Here for the discussion of this paper, one can also add that even these usages are limited to the contextual understanding of the English world. Because language is also considered as an vehicle of a culture. But it is true that even the English speaking persons from the non-English world particularly of the Southern countries, (where English rulers have ruled in the past), understand the meaning of Charity more or less in the above sense only. ...
9
In recent years the role of 'religion' has generally been considered in the negative term, specially in India. Today, it may be a Kashmir or Punjab problem in North India, but all such problems are attributed to 'religion'. But that is when 'religion' is used at the higher level either by a state or sub-state, or by larger religious communities to protect their special interests. One such good example is of the Babri-Ramjanambhoomi conflict, over a Mosque and Temple, between the two larger communities of India, namely the Muslims and the Hindus. A recent film 'Bombay' in Hindi has well projected this problem from this angle. But then there is also the 'religion' of people, which operates at the lower or local levels, the level of ordinary people, where it plays the role of establishing relations, more correctly it helps building a larger community positively. This lecture deals with the latter form or level of religion. This lecture is based upon the actual case studies. Though these case studies belong to North West India, yet the application of these are applicable generally to the rest of India also. For the sake of convenience this lecture is divided into two parts. In part one, two cases, one from rural and the other from urban areas, dealing with the theme of 'relations in religion' are given, and in part two, some comments, along with a few views of others are offered, and at the end, in the form of concluding remarks a summary of the whole lecture is given.
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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.
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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.