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Weituo 韦驮 is one of the most frequently represented protective deities in Chinese Buddhist temples. The statue of Weituo is enshrined virtually in every standard Buddhist temple in China today, and at a unique location—in the entrance hall for the four Heavenly Kings and facing inward. Why is the Weituo statue placed at this place and looking inward? The Chinese Weituo can be traced back to the Hindu god Skanda. However, his iconography and functions in China were completely reshaped by master Daoxuan's 道宣 (596–667) account of this deity. Actually, Weituo is just one of the many Buddhist protective deities for general protection and prosperity. In China, as I demonstrate in this study, Weituo has been known as the most diligent Dharma-protector and is associated in particular with the saṅgha, as a patron guardian and inspector of monks and nuns. Thus, Weituo's images are shrined in Buddhist temples. The locations of these images reflect the importance of Weituo and his special role in Chinese Buddhism. In the past, there have been a few studies, but they mainly focus on his origin. The functions of Weituo and the worship of Weituo in the Chinese saṅgha have not been well examined. Going beyond his identities, iconography, and style, this study aims to contextualize Weituo images in temple space and religious practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the translations of Shakunakharas, which refers to the popular folk ritual songs of the Central Himalayan region of Kumaun, using various translation techniques. Cited are the cultural nuances associated with these ritual folk songs, a background on the cultural and religious beliefs of the Kumauni community, and the socio-psychological constructs of Kumauni folk life and its people.

Shaligrams are the sacred fossil ammonites of the Himalayas. Viewed primarily as manifestations of Hindu gods, Shaligrams are obtained by pilgrimage to Himalayan Nepal and are then brought home to families and communities all over South Asia and the Diaspora as household deities. But Shaligrams also contain a variety of natural characteristics that are read and interpreted through long-standing oral traditions that use these features to both determine which specific deity is manifest within the stone and to link each Shaligram with a body of religious stories and local folklore. Therefore, the semiotic interpretation of Shaligrams instantiates ritual practices by which each stone becomes both an object and a text; able to be read by those fluent in its symbolic language. This practice then blurs the line between categories of object and archive; where fossils become literal texts and stones become storytellers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: India and Southeast Asia have a rich history of cultural exchanges and trade relationships, significantly impacted by transnational migration and cross-cultural movements (Woodward, 2004; Van, 2020). This study explores the Indian cultural influence on Southeast Asia, particularly focusing on the introduction and development of Buddhism in Vietnam. Methods: Through a historical and doctrinal analysis, this research examines primary and secondary sources, including inscriptions, ancient texts, and scholarly articles. The study adopts a comparative approach to trace the evolution of Buddhism in both India and Vietnam, analyzing key philosophical tenets, ritual practices, and socio-cultural impacts. Results: The maritime commercial network in Asia during the first two centuries of the Common Era facilitated the spread of Buddhism into Vietnam, strengthening commercial and cultural ties between India and Vietnam (Taylor, 2017). Northern Vietnam became a center for Buddhist learning, attracting pilgrims and missionaries. Vietnamese Buddhism uniquely did not integrate Hindu gods, aligning more closely with Confucianist and Taoist traditions. An inscription from 875 C.E. documents the construction of a Buddhist temple and monastery by Indravarman II, marking a significant event in the history of Vietnamese Buddhism (Nguyen Lang, 2000). Discussion: The study reveals shared doctrinal foundations rooted in early Indian Buddhism and their evolution within Vietnam’s unique cultural context (Ariyaratne, 2010). While Indian Buddhism influenced Vietnamese practices, Vietnam adapted Buddhism to fit its own cultural ethos, resulting in both intersections and divergences in Buddhist development (Taylor, 2017; Dao, 2018). Conclusion: This research enhances the understanding of Buddhism’s historical journey and fosters cross-cultural dialogue. It highlights the intricate interactions between Indian and Vietnamese cultures, demonstrating the selective adoption of elements consistent with Vietnamese beliefs. The study contributes to appreciating the diversity within the global Buddhist community and the nuanced influence of Indian culture on Southeast Asian Buddhism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a special issue of the journal Religions on the topic of "Continuity and Change according to Hindu and Buddhist Religious Philosophies." The document explores the concepts of continuity and change in Hindu and Buddhist religious and philosophical traditions. It discusses the views on temporal finitude and the cycle of suffering in Hindu and Buddhist soteriologies, as well as the emphasis on impermanence and nonsubstantiality in Buddhist philosophy. The document also examines the debates between Hindu and Buddhist scholastic philosophies regarding the existence of enduring objects and selves. The articles in this volume provide insights into various aspects of Hindu and Buddhist philosophies of continuity and change. [Extracted from the article]

What are the implications of a bejeweled dancer in fine silk on the proscenium stage performing a piece that undeniably centers caste? As the Bharatanatyam field reflects on the art form's appropriation from the hereditary dance community, analyzing choreography reveals different bodily representations of caste. Many Bharatanatyam dancers globally perform excerpts of the Nandanar Charitram, by Tamil composer Gopalakrishna Bharathi. The plot traces Nandanar, a Dalit saint who is not allowed in many temples and ends with his immolation, allowing his "purified" self to unite with the Hindu god Shiva. I study performances of the Nandanar Charitram comparing two Bharatanatyam showings and the 1942 film "Nandanar". To recognize how caste is both articulated and understood, I analyze choreography, interviews conducted with dancers, and forums where audience members share their responses to the works. I use Judith Butler and Dwight Conquergood's theorization of performativity, acknowledging that while Bharatanatyam choreography is often "iterative", it has the potential to "disrupt" dominant norms on caste and politics. Nandanar remains the most prominent Dalit figure seen in the Bharatanatyam repertoire. By studying representations of his story, I highlight the relevance of bodily caste politics in the South Asian diaspora today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how Hindu deities and places of worship are understood as legal persons in the Supreme Court of India's (2019) and the Allahabad High Court's (2014) verdicts concerning the 'Ayodhya Dispute' – M. Siddiq v. Suresh Das. It discusses the Courts' interpretations of a specific Sanskrit maxim attributed to the sixteenth Century Sanskrit jurist, Raghunandana Bhaṭṭācārya, in the specific context of their distinction between the juridical personality of the deities Rām Lalla Virajman (the infant form of Rāma worshipped at the Babri Masjid/Ram Janmabhumi site) and Asthan Rām Janmabhūmi (the deification of the contested site itself). The Allahabad High Court invoked Raghunandana to justify a faith-based application of Sanskrit jurisprudence (Dharmaśāstra) to expand the Hindu community's constitutionally-protected rights to freedom of religion into a legal weapon with which to assert control over India's contested geography. The Supreme Court, however, rejected this majoritarian 'Trojan Horse' by reframing Raghunandana's maxim – as cited in a body of judicial precedent – to support the legal personality of Rām Virajman merely as the pious purpose of worship at Ayodhya. Legal debates about the juristic personality of Hindu deities are inseparable, I argue, from determinations about the ownership of some hotly-contested religious sites in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Energy God Is beyond Human Understanding Shankara's claim that the ultimate god is without characteristics or names is his way of saying that the ultimate god is beyond human understanding. The Nirguna God of the Hindu Philosopher Shankara The famous Hindu philosopher Shankara taught and wrote, most likely in the 8th century. Hindus, in sharp contrast, worshipped many gods and made great use of images of those gods in their temples and homes. When there no longer was a gap in the human understanding of volcanoes or storms, the belief in the volcano or storm god faded away, only to be replaced by the god of another gap in human knowledge. [Extracted from the article]

With this concept Schuon aims to defuse the pitfalls of religious exclusivism, based on a "sentimental bias" (p. 100) which sometimes entails a "religious nationalism" (p. 115) that is especially strong in Abrahamic religions. Laude does not grasp the paradox that perennialism is another project of totalization, as Laude himself recognizes a "synthesis I a priori i " (p. 19). Laude argues that Schuon is "radically different from the neo-spiritualist" (p. 323), as from Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) and New Age phenomena. [Extracted from the article]

Jain surveys a host of patrons, architects, artisans, and consumers (not only in India but in Tirindad and Mauritius too) who jostle within this contentious space. Within all this, I would say Jain's reframing of Benjamin's much-quoted distinction between cult value and exhibition value is a valuable takeaway from the book (see chapter 3). Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger is a scholar of religion known for her ethnographies of "everyday" religion in India. [Extracted from the article]

Diane's Jewish ancestors - some of whom came from a shtetl close to the border of Austria/Hungary/Poland, others from Russia - and her wide-ranging spiritual passions - influenced by a great grandfather who was a rabbi, a father who was agnostic, a mother who was observant - show up in many poems. Long ago, when music, dance, and poetry were one - practiced by the shaman in a world where stones, trees, animals, and humans were woven together in one intricate web of being - to make art and to heal were the same magic. Enigma Diane, as maker of these poems, is herself an enigma - a cast of moving, changing, delightful personae that dance through her variations on the enigmatic nature of life. The poem blends Jewish and pagan rituals with her mother's bedtime ritual - when Diane was a child - of singing two lullabies to rock her to sleep. [Extracted from the article]

Scholars have traditionally approached Jain devotional practices, or bhakti, as a "borrowing" from Hindu traditions. John E. Cort (2002) argues that this formulation of bhakti limits our understanding of Jainism's role in the early development of bhakti within Indian religions. As the birthplace of bhakti, the literature of medieval Tamil Nadu offers rich evidence of how Jain and Hindu thinkers put their distinctive stamps on the emerging devotional landscape. This paper compares the role of bhakti in the fifth-century Jain narrative epic poems Cilappatikaram and Nilakeci as well as the sixth-century poetry of the Hindu poet-saint Karaikkal Ammaiyar. Drawing on the performance-centered approach to the study of religion described by Catherinethe Bell (1998), I argue that the Jain authors of Cilappatikaram and Nilakeci stress complex ritualistic actions as the correct performance of bhakti, while the poetry of Karaikkal Ammaiyar emphasizes a form of spontaneous and ecstatic devotion towards the Hindu god Shiva. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Kālikāpurāṇa, the mountainous region of Kāmarūpa (roughly present Assam) is described as a 'Wonderland' where Hindu gods and goddesses are present in the form of mountains, wells, stones and rivers, and where people become immortal and reach a divine status. Death had no access there. The text, however, reports that after some time, all the sacred places in this region had been completely washed away by a flood of the Brahmaputra river. The gods disappeared. Wonderland became an ordinary land again, where people live and die. The way Kāmarūpa is described in this Purāṇa betrays the hand of a Brāhmin who accepted 'correct' Tantrism to some extent but preferred Vaiṣṇava standards. The relevant passages are translated anew and briefly discussed. The text itself is given the floor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1930s Hindi short story "Mugaloṃ ne saltanat bakhś dī" ("The Mughals Gave the Sultanate Away") by self-proclaimed apolitical author Bhagavatīcaraṇ Varmā offers an alternative version of how the British Crown took the rule of India away from the Mughal Empire. An in-depth analysis of this story written during the buildup to the decolonization of India evaluates how two different kinds of what is often referred to as "outside rulers" are depicted in this story: the Mughal emperors and the British colonial rulers. This case study assesses whether the story shows a different attitude toward Mughals and the centuries-old Muslim culture in India, compared to how both historic rulers are viewed and represented by right-wing Hindu nationalists: Muslim Indians seem to be made part of the "other" rather than a part of an inclusive interpretation of the Indian "self." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Śrī Nāth is one of the most important images of Krishna being worshipped at the temple of Nathdwara in Rajasthan. His devotees consider him to be a living god, he appears in their dreams, and according to their sayings they are in direct contact with him. Śrī Nāth, originally a local deity, is equated with the major Hindu god Krishna. However, while Krishna may be one of the most important gods in India, he is also ambiguous through his acts and words, if not bluntly unreliable. This double nature of Krishna is reflected in the cult of Śrī Nāth. There is an interesting interaction between Śrī Nāth (implying Krishna himself), the main gurus of his cult, i.e., Vallabha (Vallabhācārya) and the latter's son and main successor Viṭṭhalnāth and his devoted disciples. At times, Śrī Nāth feels the need to stick to the official Brahmanical cult of the temple rituals, on other occasions, there is no problem in transgressing any given official rule. The same is true for the primary teachers, who are often put on par with Krishna himself or one of the celestials closely connected to him. Additionally, the disciples can apparently do anything in their frenzies. All of this reinforces the idea that this entire cult belongs to another world (alaukik). It is part of the everyday world (laukik) of Hindu India, but meanwhile, each and every rule can be ignored if the supernatural breaks through. Even the distinction between Hinduism and Islam at times simply does not seem to be of importance anymore. Muslims can become addicted to the passionate love for Krishna through the form of Śrī Nāth, so it is sometimes stated. Each and every partaker in the cult may share the visions of the initiated devotee, at times even without proper initiation. This all adds to the experience of the supermundane and supernatural in this particular cult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the Tamil temple mythology that developed around King Pururavas of the Lunar Dynasty from the temple legends of the Vilinatacuvami-koyil in Tiruvilimilalai and the Umamakecuvarar-koyil in Konerirajapuram in the Kaveri-delta area in India. Topics discussed include the journey of Pururavas to find a cure for his leprosy, former lives of Pururavas in the Puranas, incarnation narrative and Vedic story of Puruvaras, and the nature of the relationship between human and divine.

Anklet, which has been used since the first periods of known history and is encountered everywhere where people exist; While it is widely used in Iran, Egypt and India, its use in our country has generally been in our Southeastern provinces. It is understood that it was widely used among European peoples, from the fact that it was found in tumuli after 1800 BC in almost every region of Europe from the fronts of the Alps to the Danube, from the Rhine to the Rhôn. While the forces of the evolution, continuity and dissolution of the world were at the feet of the god Shiva, one of the most important names of Indian belief, it became the symbol of slavery at the feet of 14 to 20 million Africans who moved from the Black Continent to America. In Divan literature, it has become an image that appeals to aesthetic feelings in some of our poets such as Bâkî. The sense of pleasure and enjoyment of beauty and beauty, which is the natural tendency of human beings, has brought along the search for beauty and beauty. Anklet; For thousands of years, it has been evaluated in different ways and for different purposes. While sometimes restricting her freedom as a symbol of slavery on her ankles, it sometimes became a symbol of elegance on the ankles of women, and sometimes took its place on the feet of domestic pigeons, taking the name "hışhış". Sometimes it turns into an object in order to smuggle snakes at the feet of Yörük women, and sometimes it becomes a messenger on the child's ankle to be aware of when the baby sleeping in the tent wakes up. It has undergone changes with different time, space and cultural environment, and even if it is used as an ornament and an element of elegance, it has been produced from different objects according to the fine tastes of each society and transferred to future generations and has continued its existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transgender people in India hold a dualistic perspective on their identity. In one way, they are considered a disgraceful entity in society and, at the same time, they resemble the "Ardhanareswar" version of the Hindu God Shiva (Ardhanareswar version of Shiva: among Shiv's many avatars, Ardhanareswar is the only one in which the god embodied both genders in a single amalgamation. That represented both the male and female gender). Also, they have been referred to as derogatory names, which are often used as slang for men who are "not man enough" and more resemble femininity. In the case of the trans women community, they are caught up in the binary status of gender, which completely ignores the third gender, and hence suffer along with the secondary status of womanhood in Indian society. In this perspective, there was and is gradual exclusion and discrimination against the trans women community. Gender identity and available occupational choice influence their occupational decision making. In this regard, the present study tries to explore the identity formation and discrimination faced by the transgender community in Sambalpur, Western Odisha. Furthermore, it tries to understand the construction of their identity through the theory of Othering. It also strives to look at the impact of discrimination on their personal, social, and health prospects in the community and evaluate the impact of the schemes implemented for them. The study is conducted among 45 trans women in the Sambalpur city in Western Odisha. Based on its prejudices, Indian society continues to create transgender identity. To give them proper recognition, government scheme assistance is insufficient at times, and people's mindsets must be changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnographic analysis of the two main exorcistic practices in which married women are involved in Garhwal (India) shows that the theme of domestic conflict is central to both rituals. Addressing classical debates in anthropology about possession, this text raises two main questions: are these practices forms of feminine resistance to patriarchal social rules? And what is the notion of the person and her or his action in the world underlying these practices? Although these rituals may sometimes bring benefits to the women participating in them, women do not seem to perceive themselves nor to act as individuals who are resisting social structures, but more as part of collective networks of human and spiritual persons. As for the effects of these rituals, they are geared towards the preservation of family unity. This is achieved by the fact that, while evoking human conflict, these ritual devices subordinate it to the problem of divine conflict. Yet these practices do not only have an integrative function vis-à-vis conflicts that potentially endanger the family unit, but they also firmly establish the position of married women and their irreplaceability in the fabric of social life. Being close to the deities of their natal villages and easily affected by spirits of the dead, married women have an essential role in mediating with them and therefore in building and preserving the network of human and non-human beings on which the well-being of the family depends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Hindu practices and narratives, otherworldly and nonhuman beings appear with nonhuman and otherworldly bodies and feelings. In this article, I draw from ethnographic fieldwork as well as from philology to outline the widespread perception of divine presence or emotion as "heat". This embodied idea or multi-sensual "aesthetic blend", as I propose to call it, can be found in very diverse cultural and historical traditions of South Asia. It is more than a concept, a "mapping" or a metaphor, insofar as it informs how people not only think of, but sensually encounter the bodies of goddesses and gods. By adding this new term to the vocabulary of the Study of Religions, I intend to build upon the focus on embodied, enacted and situated religion, as it has become prominent within the discipline, to see the seemingly disembodied texts and stories in a new light. Does, in the end, the way divine bodies are imagined feed back into how humans conceptualize and feel their own bodies? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As India faced multiple waves of the pandemic, religious responses arose to accommodate and make sense of the situation. In the face of uncertainty, disease and death, people turn not just towards the medical sciences but also religion. The emergence of a new Hindu goddess, Corona Mātā/Coronavirus Mardhinī encapsulates people's fear, faith, and devotion. Although the goddess is new, the tradition of disease goddesses is ancient. The Indian Subcontinent has a long history of mother goddesses who have been protecting their devotees from diseases such as smallpox, fever, plague, etc. This paper attempts to examine the emergence of Corona Mātā in the historical context of these 'protective mothers'. On one hand, historically, these goddesses have emerged as a result of interaction between Brahmanical religion and regional practices. On the other hand, these disease-centred goddesses can also be seen as the result of fear and faith. This paper will analyse the location of Corona Mātā in the ever-evolving pantheon of Hindu deities in the context of a 21st-century pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay revisits a group of stone goddesses that once shared a temple in southern India, together with the god Shiva and perhaps other deities. Considering the different paths sacred sculptures in India take after becoming separated from their original temple contexts suggests that there were multiple possible histories for these works. The authors reveal a newly discovered goddess from the group and reconsider the significance of the works, including the original temple and the deities it enshrined. Finally, they propose the possibility of bringing these sculptures back together in the context of an exhibition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Divinisation rituals establishing oneness between practitioners and divinities are common across Tantric traditions. While scholars largely argue that divinisation occurs through meditative practices, implying a clear demarcation between contemplative samayācāra rituals and body-focused kaulācāra rituals, I suggest that samayācāra divinisation rituals entail fundamental corporeal elements; furthermore, I argue that the distinction between samayācāra and kaulācāra rituals is not obvious, but negotiated on a continuum ranging between representational and embodied corporeality. Based on extensive anthropological fieldwork in the temple-complex Śaktipur, I first illustrate divinised Śrīvidyā bodies: they are permeated by goddess Tripurasundarī in her anthropomorphic form and as a diagram, or yantra (the Śrīcakra), and by the deities Gaṇapati, Śyāmā, and Vārāhī, and their respective yantras. Thereafter, I describe yantrapūjās, which are samayācāra rituals through which practitioners divinise their bodies, outlining, particularly, their corporeal elements. I also illustrate sirījyotipūjā, which is a ritual directly transmitted by Tripurasundarī to Śaktipur's guru and is, therefore, unique to his disciples. Foreseeing the creation of a large Śrīcakra decorated with flowers, around and at the centre of which practitioners congregate, the ritual facilitates the superimposition of the Śrīcakra, Tripurasundarī and worshippers' bodies; including both representational and embodied elements, sirījyotipūjā occupies the fluid intersection between samayācāra and kaulācāra rituals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The epistemic question about what constitutes religious belief in non-Western contexts is addressed here through the ontology of sonic experience. I demonstrate that religious beliefs are habitually ingrained as long-sustaining visceral memories, when afforded by sensory—for instance, aural—affects. Bengal's peculiar devotional milieu constructs a prototype of oppositions. On one end is the urban, classical, martial goddess, Durga, with elite histories of acquiring a high Brahmanical form, and whose autumnal rituals are based on scriptural rules, caste hierarchies, and distance among the devotees and deity. On the other end is the rural, indigenous, non-classical, peasant god, Shiva, whose spring-time worship celebrating primordial death and regeneration is based on intensely embodied and communitarian principles of identity among the caste-equal bodies of devotee men, and even their god. Based on immersive ethnographic analyses, the paper argues that these dual psychological ends of the regional sacred cosmos are made vividly real through differential perceptive experiences of percussion sounds (ubiquitous in these festivities), their varied tempos, textures, volumes, and rhythm modulations. Through phenomenological deep listening, I describe stark styles of making and playing the sacred membranophone drum, dhak, which embodies distinct rhythm styles, relationships with rituals, and psychophysical effects on the devotional ensembles. I show how the bodies of devotees, dhak players (dhakis), deities, and even the dhak, become tied to the tonalities of the drum, which is taught through generations of deft learning among dhakis, to sound distinctly when echoed for Durga and Shiva. The paper's main argument is that these dhak sounds, which have remained a conceptual oversight in literature, not only aid in, but indeed, enable the experience of and belief in Bengal's divergent deities. It is through such empowering sensory sedimentations of the different sounds of the same percussion, that people recognize, remember, and maintain the region's devotional dialectic and complex religious lifeworld. In essence, the body's powerful experiences of drum sounds make religious belief palpable and possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are good reasons for envisioning a global discourse about God, premised necessarily agreed upon perfections considered to be by definition proper to God, and for thinking through the implications of our understanding of God for morality. Philosophically, it makes sense to hold that claims about omnipotence, omniscience, and other superlative perfections are indeed maximal, and define "God" wherever the terminology of divine persons is taken up. Religiously too, it makes sense to assert that a deity possessed of perfections is not just the deity of one's own tribe or religion, but also the deity of the whole world, whether acknowledged as such or not. This essay delves into the larger set of rich complexities by three moves. First, I look into a single extended historical case of the extension of the discourse about God beyond the Christian West, the discourse on God proffered by Western Jesuit missionaries in India from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. Second, I place next to that Jesuit learning the instance of a famed Hindu theologian's discourse on God, God's perfections, and their moral implications. Third, I briefly step back and assess the dangers and fruitful prospects inherent in thinking about God and morality in an interreligious context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]