For the first time, this influential study by Ludwig Alsdorf is made available to an English speaking audience, translated by Bal Patil. It focuses on two of the most pertinent issues in Indian religion, the history of vegetarianism and cow-veneration, and its historical approach remains relevant to this day.

With reference to significant brahminical texts, such as key chapters of the Book of Manu, the book centres on the author's analysis of the role of Jinism in the history of vegetarianism. The author explores the history of meat-eating in India and its relationship to religious thought and custom, and searches for solutions to the problem of cattle veneration. Besides a comprehensive translation of the original German manuscript "Beitr?ge zur Geschichte von Vegetarismus und Rinderverehrung in Indien," four important articles directly related to Alsdorf's work by Kapadia, Heesterman and Schmidt are made available in this new edition.

These additional contributions and careful notes by the editor Willem Boll?e add a modern perspective to a study that remains a key reference for students and scholars of Religious Studies, Asian Studies and History.

This book accounts for the origin and evolution of the nature and roles of women within the Hindu belief system. It explains how the idea of the goddess has been derived from Hindu philosophical ideas and texts of codes of conduct and how particular models of conduct for mortal women have been created. Hindu religious culture correlates philosophical speculation and social imperatives to situate femininity on a continuum from divine to mortal existence. This creates in the Hindu consciousness multiple - often contradictory - images of women, both as wielders and subjects of authority. The conception and evolution of the major Hindu goddesses, placed against the judgments passed by texts of Hindu sacred law on women's nature and duties, illuminate the Hindu discourse on gender, the complexity of which is compounded by the distinctive spirituality of female ascetic poets. Drawing on a wide range of Sanskrit texts, the author explains how the idea of the goddess has been derived from Hindu philosophical ideas and also from the social roles of women as reflected in, and prescribed by, texts of codes of conduct. She examines the idea of female divinity which gave rise to models of conduct for mortal women. Instead of a one-way order of ideological derivation, the author argues that there is constant traffic between both ways the notional and the actual feminine. This book brings together for the first time a wide range of material and offers fresh stimulating interpretations of women in the Hindu Tradition.

Nursing keeps changing. The role of the nurse grew out of a Christian understanding of the human person as created in the image of God, and viewed the body as a living unity and the "temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 6:19). Contemporary nursing, however, is increasingly characterized by a diminished understanding of personhood. The impact on patient care has proven confusing and discouraging to many nurses. In the newly revised and expanded Called to Care: A Christian Worldview for Nursing, Judith Allen Shelly and Arlene B. Miller define nursing for today based on a historically and theologically grounded understanding of the nurse's call: Nursing is a ministry of compassionate care for the whole person, in response to God's grace toward a sinful world, which aims to foster optimum health (shalom) and bring comfort in suffering and death for anyone in need. Called to Care asserts that nursing is a vocation, giving nurses a framework for understanding their mission and living out their calling: service to God through caring for others.

Ancient stories meet modern cities in this deeply significant region where the past is always present. Take the trip of a lifetime with Moon Israel & the West Bank. Inside you'll find: - Flexible, strategic itineraries including a week in Jerusalem, three days in Tel Aviv, and a month exploring the region plus excursions to the West Bank, the Dead Sea, and Petra. - The top sights and unique experiences: Visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or pay respects at the Western Wall, and stop at holy sites throughout Northern Israel and the West Bank. Feast on falafel, hummus, and shaksuka and haggle for antiques at a market in Jerusalem. Bike through Tel Aviv's charming Neve Tzedek neighbourhood or relax at one of its beaches. Float in the Dead Sea, watch the sun set over the massive Negev craters, or stay overnight in a Bedouin tent encampment. - Local insight: Journalist and long time Jerusalem resident Genevieve Belmaker shares the history and culture of her beloved former home. - Full-colour, vibrant photos throughout. - Detailed maps for exploring on your own, and useful tips on border crossings and checkpoints. - Thorough background information on the landscape, history, government, and culture. - Handy tools and planning essentials including Hebrew and Arabic phrasebooks, health and safety tips, customs and conduct, and information for LGBTQ, female, and senior travellers, families with children, travellers of colour, and travellers with disabilities. - Focused coverage of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, the North Coast, the Galilee and the Golan Heights, the West Bank, Eilat and the Negev, and Petra, Jordan. Experience the best of Israel and the West Bank with Moon's practical advice and insider tips. Exploring further? Check out Moon Egypt.

In 2009, New York Times bestselling author Sara Davidson was surprised by a call from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, asking her to engage with him in what he called "The December Project." At eighty-five, Reb Zalman wanted to teach people how to navigate the December of life and to help them "not freak out about dying."

Davidson jumped at the chance. She feared that death would be a complete annihilation, while Reb Zalman felt certain that "something continues." For two years, they met every Friday to discuss this and how getting "up close with mortality" quickens our ability to relish every day.

Woven through their talks are sketches from Reb Zalman's life: escaping the Nazis; becoming an orthodox rabbi in the U.S.; landing in San Francisco during the sexual revolution; taking L.S.D. with Timothy Leary; befriending other faith leaders, including Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama; and founding the Jewish Renewal movement.

During their time together, Davidson was nearly killed by a suicide bomb and Reb Zalman faced a steep decline in health. They created strategies to deal with pain and memory loss and found tools to cultivate fearlessness and joy--at any age. Davidson includes twelve exercises so readers can experience what she did, a sea change in facing what we all must face: mortality.

This book examines Muslims in Singapore, analysing their habits, practices and dispositions towards everyday life, and also their role within the broader framework of the secularist Singapore state and the cultural dominance of its Chinese elite, who are predominantly Buddhist and Christian. Singapore has a highly unusual approach to issues of religious diversity and multiculturalism, adopting a policy of deliberately 'managing religions' - including Islam - in an attempt to achieve orderly and harmonious relations between different racial and religious groups. This has encompassed implicit and explicit policies of containment and 'enclavement' of Muslims, and also the more positive policy of 'upgrading' Muslims through paternalist strategies of education, training and improvement, including the modernisation of madrassah education in both content and orientation. This book examines how this system has operated in practice, and evaluates its successes and failures. In particular, it explores the attitudes and reactions of Muslims themselves across all spheres of everyday life, including dining and maintaining halal-vigilance; education and dress code; and practices of courtship, sex and marriage. It also considers the impact of wider international developments, including 9/11, fear of terrorism and the associated stigmatization of Muslims; and developments within Southeast Asia such as the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist attacks and the Islamization of Malaysia and Indonesia. This study has more general implications for political strategies and public policies in multicultural societies that are deeply divided along ethno-religious lines.

Christianity Today 2022 Book Award Winner (Politics & Public Life) Outreach 2022 Resource of the Year (Social Issues and Justice) Foreword INDIES 2021 Finalist for Religion "Kwon and Thompson's eloquent reasoning will help Christians broaden their understanding of the contemporary conversation over reparations."--Publishers Weekly "A thoughtful approach to a vital topic."--Library Journal Christians are awakening to the legacy of racism in America like never before. While public conversations regarding the realities of racial division and inequalities have surged in recent years, so has the public outcry to work toward the long-awaited healing of these wounds. But American Christianity, with its tendency to view the ministry of reconciliation as its sole response to racial injustice, and its isolation from those who labor most diligently to address these things, is underequipped to offer solutions. Because of this, the church needs a new perspective on its responsibility for the deep racial brokenness at the heart of American culture and on what it can do to repair that brokenness. This book makes a compelling historical and theological case for the church's obligation to provide reparations for the oppression of African Americans. Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson articulate the church's responsibility for its promotion and preservation of white supremacy throughout history, investigate the Bible's call to repair our racial brokenness, and offer a vision for the work of reparation at the local level. They lead readers toward a moral imagination that views reparations as a long-overdue and necessary step in our collective journey toward healing and wholeness. Christians are awakening to the legacy of racism in America like never before. Reparations explores the church's responsibility for the deep racial brokenness at the heart of American culture, investigates the Bible's call to repair it, and offers a vision for the work of reparation at the local level. The authors lead readers toward a moral imagination that views reparations as a long-overdue and necessary step in our collective journey toward healing and wholeness. This book won a Christianity Today 2022 Book Award (Politics & Public Life) and an Outreach 2022 Resource of the Year Award (Social Issues and Justice). It was also a Foreword INDIES 2021 Finalist for Religion. "Kwon and Thompson's eloquent reasoning will help Christians broaden their understanding of the contemporary conversation over reparations."--Publishers Weekly

In this study, E. Frances King explores how people first learn to relate to the images and artefacts of religious belief within their domestic environments. As a sense of religious belonging is instilled on a daily basis in the home, it also becomes emotionally linked to family, community, and homeland, resulting in two different genealogies - one to do with faith and one to do with motherland - that become entangled.

This book examines Islam and women's everyday life, focusing in particular on the highly controversial issue of polygamy. It discusses the competing interpretations of the Qur?anic verses that are at the heart of Muslim controversies over polygamy, with some groups believing that Islam enshrines polygamy as a male right, others seeing it as permitted but discouraged in favour of monogamy, and other groups arguing that Islam implicitly prohibits polygamy. Based on detailed fieldwork conducted in Indonesia, it provides an empirically-based account of women's lived experiences in polygamous marriages, describing the different perceptions of the practice and strategies in dealing with it. It also considers the impact of changing public policy, in particular Indonesia's 1974 Marriage Law which restricted the practice of polygamy. It shows that, in fact, this law has not resulted in widespread adherence, and considers how public policy could be modified to increase its effectiveness in affecting behaviour in everyday life. Overall, the book argues that polygamy has been a source of injustice towards women and children, that this is against Islamic teaching, and that a just Islamic law would need to call for the abolition of polygamy.

In Buddhist thought and practice, death has always been a central concept. This book provides a careful and thorough analysis of the rituals and social customs surrounding death in the Theravada tradition of Sri Lanka.

Rita Langer describes the rituals of death and rebirth and investigates their ancient origins, analyzing social issues of the relationship between monks and lay people in this context. This aspect is of particular interest as death rituals are the only life cycle ritual in which Theravada Buddhist monks are actively involved. Drawing on early Vedic sutras and Pali texts as well as archaeological and epigraphical material, Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth establishes that Sri Lankan rituals are deeply rooted in their pre-Buddhist, Vedic precursors. Whilst beliefs and doctrines have undergone considerable changes over the centuries, it becomes evident that the underlying practices have largely remained stable.

The first comprehensive study of death rituals in Theravada Buddhist practice, this is an important contribution to the fields of Buddhist studies, indology, anthropology and religious studies.

After 9/11, madrasas have been linked to international terrorism. They are suspected to foster anti-western, traditionalist or even fundamentalist views and to train al-Qaeda fighters. This has led to misconceptions on madrasa-education in general and its role in South Asia in particular. Government policies to modernize and pacify madrasas have been precipitous and mostly inadequate.

This book discusses the educational system of madrasas in South Asia. It gives a contextual account of different facets of madrasa education from historical, anthropological, theological, political and religious studies perspectives. Some contributions offer recommendations on possible and necessary reforms of religious educational institutions. It also explores the roots of militancy and sectarianism in Pakistan, as well as its global context.

Overall, the book tries to correct misperceptions on the role of madrasas, by providing a more balanced discussion, which denies neither the shortcomings of religious educational institutions in South Asia nor their important contributions to mass education.

Religious procession is a significant dimension of religion in South Asia. Processions are central not only in Hinduism, but also Islam, Christianity, Jainism and Sikhism, which have large procession rituals. The last years have seen an increase in processions and ritualizations of space both in South Asia and in the South Asian Diaspora.

Processions are religious display events and the increase in processions are functions of religious pluralism and competition about public space as well as economic prosperity and a revival of religious identities. Processions often bring together religion and politics since they are about public space, domination and contestation.

Written by leading specialists on religious processions and ritualization of public space in South Asia and in the Diaspora, this volume presents current research on the interpretations of the role of processions, the recent increase in processions and changes in the procession traditions.

South Asian Religions on Display will appeal to students and scholars of Asian studies, anthropology, religion and political science.

Winner of the 2021 Suraj Mal and Shyama Devi Agarwal Book Prize This book provides a socio-economic examination of the status of women in contemporary Turkey, assessing how policies have combined elements of neoliberalism and Islamic conservatism. Using rich qualitative and quantitative analyses, Women in Turkey analyses the policies concerning women in the areas of employment, education and health and the fundamental transformation of the construction of gender since the early 2000s. Comparing this with the situation pre-2000, the authors argue that the reconstruction of gender is part of the reshaping of the state-society relations, the state-business relationship, and the cultural changes that have taken place across the country over the last two decades. Thus, the book situates the Turkish case within the broader context of international development of neoliberalism while paying close attention to its idiosyncrasies. Adopting a political economy perspective emphasizing the material sources of gender relations, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Middle Eastern politics, political Islam and Gender Studies.

The second volume of Shmuel Feiner's The Jewish Eighteenth Century covers the period from 1750 to 1800, a time of even greater upheavals, tensions, and challenges. The changes that began to emerge at the beginning of the eighteenth century matured in the second half. Feiner explores how political considerations of the Jewish minority throughout Europe began to expand. From the "Jew Bill" of 1753 in Britain, to the surprising series of decrees issued by Joseph II of Austria that expanded tolerance in Austria, to the debate over emancipation in revolutionary France, the lives of the Jews of Europe became ever more intertwined with the political, social, economic, and cultural fabric of the continent. The Jewish Eighteenth Century, Volume 2: A European Biography, 1750-1800 concludes Feiner's landmark study of the history of Jewish populations in the period. By combining an examination of the broad and profound processes that changed the familiar world from the ground up with personal experiences of those who lived through them, it allows for a unique explanation of these momentous events.

This book focuses on social and cultural trends in present-day Hadrami Arab societies in Eastern and Central Indonesia, and the history of the Hadrami Arab people, which demonstrates an early form of globalization. For centuries migration has played a vital part in Hadrami adaptation. External forces, such as the expanding powers of the Portugese in the Indian Ocean and the Turkish conquering Yemen, and internal forces like poverty, droughts and political unrest as well as trading opportunities and missionary work instigated migration movements. While some Hadrami Arabs sought work in North America and Europe, other waves of Hadrami migration have followed the monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean to the Zanzibar coast, India, Malaysia and Indonesia. The story of Hadramis in Indonesia has largely been a story of success, in terms of trade, politics, education and religious activities. Despite continual debate regarding what constitutes Indonesian Hadrami identity, the author argues that they are still "an Indonesia-oriented group with an Arab signature."

This book will be of interest to Southeast Asian and Middle East specialists and scholars in Anthropology and Migration Studies.

In The Lives of Jessie Sampter, Sarah Imhoff tells the story of an individual full of contradictions. Jessie Sampter (1883-1938) was best known for her Course in Zionism (1915), an American primer for understanding support of a Jewish state in Palestine. In 1919, Sampter packed a trousseau, declared herself "married to Palestine," and immigrated there. Yet Sampter's own life and body hardly matched typical Zionist ideals. Although she identified with Judaism, Sampter took up and experimented with spiritual practices from various religions. While Zionism celebrated the strong and healthy body, she spoke of herself as "crippled" from polio and plagued by sickness her whole life. While Zionism applauded reproductive women's bodies, Sampter never married or bore children; in fact, she wrote of homoerotic longings and had same-sex relationships. By charting how Sampter's life did not neatly line up with her own religious and political ideals, Imhoff highlights the complicated and at times conflicting connections between the body, queerness, disability, religion, and nationalism.

Providing a wealth of empirical research on the everyday practise of Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia, this book gives a detailed account of how Islam is understood and practised among ordinary Muslims in the region, focusing in particular on Uzbekistan. It shows how individuals negotiate understandings of Islam as an important marker for identity, grounding for morality and as a tool for everyday problem-solving in the economically harsh, socially insecure and politically tense atmosphere of present-day Uzbekistan. Presenting a detailed case-study of the city of Bukhara that focuses upon the local forms of Sufism and saint veneration, the book shows how Islam facilitates the pursuit of more modest goals of agency and belonging, as opposed to the utopian illusions of fundamentalist Muslim doctrines.

Meditative practice lies at the heart of the Buddhist tradition. This introductory anthology gives a representative sample of the various kinds of meditations described in the earliest body of Buddhist scripture, the Pali canon.

It provides a broad introduction to their traditional context and practice and supplies explanation, context and doctrinal background to the subject of meditation. The main themes of the book are the diversity and flexibility of the way that the Buddha teaches meditation from the evidence of the canon. Covering fundamental features of Buddhist practice such as posture, lay meditation, and meditative technique it provides comments both from the principal early commentators on Buddhist practice, Upatissa and Buddhaghosa, and from reputable modern meditation teachers in a number of Theravadin traditions.

This is the first book on Pali Buddhism which introduces the reader to the wide range of the canon. It demonstrates that the Buddha's meditative tradition still offers a path of practice as mysterious, awe-inspiring yet as freshly accessible as it was centuries ago, and will be of interest to students and scholars of Buddhism as well as Buddhist practitioners.

British Buddhism presents a useful insight into contemporary British Buddhist practice. It provides a survey of the seven largest Buddhist traditions in the United Kingdom, including the Forest Sangha (Theravada) and the Samatha Trust (Theravada), the Serene Reflection Meditation tradition (Soto Zen) and Soka Gakkai (both originally Japanese), the Tibetan Karma Kagyu and New Kadampa traditions and Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. Based on extensive fieldwork, this fascinating book determines how and to what extent British Buddhist groups are changing from their Asian roots, and whether any forms of British Buddhism are beginning to emerge.

Despite the popularity of Buddhism in Britain, there has so far been no study documenting the full range of teachings and practice. This is an original study that fills this gap and serves as an important reference point for further studies in this increasingly popular field.

Winner, 2021 Joseph W. Elder Prize in the Indian Social Sciences Winner, 2021 Ruth Benedict Prize, Association for Queer Anthropology Hijras, one of India's third gendered or trans populations, have been an enduring presence in the South Asian imagination-in myth, in ritual, and in everyday life, often associated in stigmatized forms with begging and sex work. In more recent years hijras have seen a degree of political emergence as a moral presence in Indian electoral politics, and with heightened vulnerability within global health terms as a high-risk population caught within the AIDS epidemic. Hijras, Lovers, Brothers recounts two years living with a group of hijras in rural India. In this riveting ethnography, Vaibhav Saria reveals not just a group of stigmatized or marginalized others but a way of life composed of laughter, struggles, and desires that trouble how we read queerness, kinship, and the psyche. Against easy framings of hijras that render them marginalized, Saria shows how hijras makes the normative Indian family possible. The book also shows that particular practices of hijras, such as refusing to use condoms or comply with retroviral regimes, reflect not ignorance, irresponsibility, or illiteracy but rather a specific idiom of erotic asceticism arising in both Hindu and Islamic traditions. This idiom suffuses the densely intertwined registers of erotics, economics, and kinship that inform the everyday lives of hijras and offer a repertoire of self-fashioning beyond the secular horizons of public health or queer theory. Engrossingly written and full of keen insights, the book moves from the small pleasures of the everyday-laughter, flirting, teasing-to impossible longings, kinship, and economies of property and substance in order to give a fuller account of trans lives and of Indian society today.

New Look for Landmark Teaching on Living the Spirit-Empowered Life In our instant-gratification culture, we consume a fleeting, shallow diet of media, relationships, entertainment, and spirituality. Our souls go hungry, longing for a fuller, more satisfying life. Bestselling author and beloved pastor Jack Hayford shows, in what has become a modern-day classic, how we can feed our deepest places with the sustaining Bread of Life. With warmth and wisdom, he reveals how we can link our souls to timeless practices and principles set forth in Scripture. He invites you to rediscover the power and blessing of these spiritual disciplines--of true Spirit-fullness. Even more, he shows how these spiritual disciplines are relevant for today and how we can practice them in our quick-paced, surface-level culture. When we take time to fast and pray, worship daily, feed on God's Word, and more, we fully enter the rich adventure of becoming an effective disciple of Christ--ensuring that our souls will never go hungry.

Religious procession is a significant dimension of religion in South Asia. Processions are central not only in Hinduism, but also Islam, Christianity, Jainism and Sikhism, which have large procession rituals. The last years have seen an increase in processions and ritualizations of space both in South Asia and in the South Asian Diaspora. Processions are religious display events and the increase in processions are functions of religious pluralism and competition about public space as well as economic prosperity and a revival of religious identities. Processions often bring together religion and politics since they are about public space, domination and contestation. Written by leading specialists on religious processions and ritualization of public space in South Asia and in the Diaspora, this volume presents current research on the interpretations of the role of processions, the recent increase in processions and changes in the procession traditions. South Asian Religions on Display will appeal to students and scholars of Asian studies, anthropology, religion and political science.

Becoming a Buddhist monk in Thailand has for a long time provided the opportunity for access to a good education and to social advancement, both to bright, poor rural youths and to members of the urban elite whose youth often become monks for a few months as a rite of passage into adulthood. Moreover, although women are not allowed to become fully fledged monks, recent developments have encouraged a special status akin to nuns for many devout Thai Buddhist women. All this has resulted in large numbers of well-educated, well-motivated Buddhist religious people, keen both to engage in religious contemplation and also determined to contribute to this-worldly social, economic, educational and medical development goals. This book, by a leading authority on the subject, considers the role of Thai Buddhist religious people in development within Thailand. It discusses how Thai Buddhism has evolved philosophically and in its organisation to allow this, examines various examples of Buddhist people's engagement in development projects, and assesses how the situation is likely to unfold going forward. In addition, the book considers the relationship between science and religion in Thai Buddhism and also some aspects of the parallel situation in Sri Lanka.

After 9/11, madrasas have been linked to international terrorism. They are suspected to foster anti-western, traditionalist or even fundamentalist views and to train al-Qaeda fighters. This has led to misconceptions on madrasa-education in general and its role in South Asia in particular. Government policies to modernize and 'pacify' madrasas have been precipitous and mostly inadequate.

This book discusses the educational system of madrasas in South Asia. It gives a contextual account of different facets of madrasa education from historical, anthropological, theological, political and religious studies perspectives. Some contributions offer recommendations on possible - and necessary - reforms of religious educational institutions. It also explores the roots of militancy and sectarianism in Pakistan, as well as its global context.

Overall, the book tries to correct misperceptions on the role of madrasas, by providing a more balanced discussion, which denies neither the shortcomings of religious educational institutions in South Asia nor their important contributions to mass education.