Su-un and His World of Symbols explores the image which Choe Che-u (Su-un), the founder of Donghak (Eastern Learning) Korea's first indigenous religion, had of himself as a religious leader and human being. Su-un gave his life so that he could share his symbols, his scriptures and the foundational principals of his religion with all people, regardless of their status, gender, age or education. His egalitarian creed challenged the major religious traditions in Korea, and Korean society as a whole, to reflect on the innate dignity of each individual, and to reform their social, ethical and religious practices to accord with the reality of the Divine presence in the 'sacred refuge' that lies within. Exploring the two symbols which Su-un created and used to disseminate his religion, and the two books of Scripture which he composed, this book breaks new ground by presenting the only major work in English which attempts to ascertain the image Su-un had of himself as the prototype of a new kind of religious leader in Korea, and by extension, East Asia.

Nature, Space and the Sacred offers the first investigative mapping of a new and highly significant agenda: the spatial interactions between religion, nature and culture. In this ground-breaking work, different concepts of religion, theology, space and place and their internal relations are discussed in an impressive range of approaches. Weaving together a diversity of perspectives, this book presents an innovative and truly transdisciplinary environmental science. Its broad range offers a rich exchange of insights, methods and theoretical engagements.

Whilst there are popular ideas about which champion Aboriginal environmental knowledge, many of these are based more on romantic notions than on any detailed understanding of what might be the content of this knowledge. This book is based on a grounded and broad assessment of less well known details of Aboriginal knowledge and provides both a great deal of detail and a new assessment of rituals and practices. Aboriginal environmental knowledge is examined here as an integrated source of both religious and scientific knowledge. An important finding is that Aboriginal environmental knowledge also includes knowledge about education for attitudes considered appropriate for survival. Though evidence for this is readily available in the literature, it has not been part of current depictions of Aboriginal environmental knowledge.

The South Asian Christian diaspora is largely invisible in the literature about religion and migration. This is the first comprehensive study of South Asian Christians living in Europe and North America, presenting the main features of these diasporas, their community histories and their religious practices. The South Asian Christian diaspora is pluralistic both in terms of religious adherence, cultural tradition and geographical areas of origin. This book gives justice to such pluralism and presents a multiplicity of cultures and traditions typical of the South Asian Christian diaspora. Issues such as the institutionalization of the religious traditions in new countries, identity, the paradox of belonging both to a minority immigrant group and a majority religion, the social functions of rituals, attitudes to language, generational transfer, and marriage and family life, are all discussed.

With its complex nature and many forms and practices, Hinduism is one of the world's most elusive religions for outsiders to understand. In Essential Hinduism, expert Steven Rosen aims to make the facets of this faith clear. Essential Hinduism explores this rich tradition through its history, literature, arts, and people. This straightforward overview focuses primarily on monotheistic Vaishnavism, the most common form of Hinduism. Beginning with chapters about the foundations of Hinduism, Steven Rosen clearly lays out the religion's otherwise complicated history. Providing Hindu terms alongside English translations, he illuminates the basics of the faith for readers unacquainted with its varieties and tenets and examines commonly held misconceptions. Chapters about practices, including festivals, teachings, chanting, eating habits, and more, bring Hinduism to life in vivid detail.

The Baha'i Faith in America sets out to accomplish two main goals. The first is to introduce to the American reading public a religion whose name may be commonly mentioned or heard, yet in terms of its unique history, world-view, beliefs, and laws, is virtually unknown. Such categories provide the essential material for Part I. The second objective, which is the uniting thread of Part II, is to trace the historical development of the American Baha'i community from its earliest beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century up until the present day. The chapters in this section not only peruse the major events and introduce the leading personalities associated with American Baha'i history, they also trace significant themes, motifs, and issues that have characterized the community over the decades. Examples include early Baha'i connections with both American millenialism and metaphysical esotericism, to more recent associations with the Civil Rights Movement and the 1960s youth counterculture. In addition, the book's final chapters take a close look at some of the more controversial issues that have characterized American Baha'i community life over the past few decades. Here issues ranging in content from disagreements over differing styles of propogation to the freedom of expression allowed to Baha'i scholars are examined. In the process, the work reveals a dynamic and highly idealistic faith that is attempting to offer a model of religious community that is compatible with the continuing process of globalization.

Chondogyo is a unique and indigenous religion of Korea founded in 1860 by Choe Je-u, better known as Suun, his pen name. Chondogyo means "the Religion of Heavenly Way." Originally called Donghak, meaning "Eastern leaning," the religious movement is regarded as one of the most important in Korean history, with a particular impact on modern Korean society and politics. Its scripture has played a foundational and essential role in the belief system of Chondogyo, containing Suun's ideas about God, man, and the world, as well as his own religious experience. This translation represents the only complete translation of Donggyeong Daejeon with notes in English. The study of Chondogyo has been limited in the West due to its lack of circulation in Western languages. With this translation, a main part of the Chondogyo literature is available to the worldwide community of scholars and students engaged in the study of this important Korean religion. This work, therefore, makes a significant contribution to the scholarship of world religions.

This book addresses the growing academic concerns of the market-religion convergences in Asia.

Bringing together a group of leading scholars from Asia, Europe, Australia and North America, it discusses multiple issues regarding religious commodifications and their consequences across Asia's diverse religious traditions. Covering key issues in the anthropology and sociology of contemporary Asian religion, it draws theoretical implications for the study of religions in the light of the shift of religious institutions from traditional religious beliefs to material prosperity. The fact that religions compete with each other in a 'market of faiths' is also at the core of the analysis. The contributions show how ordinary people and religious institutions in Asia adjusted to, and negotiated with, the penetrative forces of a global market economy into the region's changing religio-cultural landscapes.

An excellent contribution to the growing demands of ethnographically and theoretically updated interpretations of Asian religions, Religious Commodifications in Asia will be of interest to scholars of Asian religion and new religious movements.

This book presents a collection of essays, setting out both the special concern of classical Indian thought and some of its potential contributions to global philosophy. It presents some key arguments made by different schools about this special concern: the way in which attainment of knowledge of reality transforms human nature in a fundamentally liberating way. It then goes on to look in detail at two areas in contemporary global philosophy - the ethics of difference, and the metaphysics of consciousness - where this classical Indian commitment to the spiritually transformative power of knowledge can lead to critical insights, even for those who do not share its presuppositions. Close reading of technical Indian texts is combined with wide-ranging and often comparative analysis of philosophical issues, to derive original arguments from the Indian material through an analytic method that is seldom mastered by philosophers of non-western traditions.

Peter B. Clarke's in-depth account explores the innovative character of new religious movements and new forms of spirituality from a global vantage point. Ranging from North America and Europe to Japan, Latin America, South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, it is the perfect introduction to NRMs such as Falun Gong, Aum Shirikyo, the Brahma Kumaris, the Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood, Sufism, the Engaged Buddhist and Engaged Hindi movements, Messianic Judaism and Rastafarianism. Charting the cultural significance and global impact of NRMs, he discusses the ways in which various religious traditions are shaping, rather than displacing, each other's understanding of notions such as transcendence and faith, good and evil, of the meaning, purpose and function of religion, and of religious belonging. He then examines the responses of governments, churches, the media and general public to new religious movements, as well as the reaction to older, increasingly influential religions, such as Buddhism and Islam, in new geographical and cultural contexts. Taking into account the degree of continuity between old and new religions, each chapter contains not only an account of the rise of the NRMs and new forms of spirituality in a particular region, but also an overview of change in the regions' mainstream religions.

The dual foci for this collection of the author's most important writings are Swaminarayan Hinduism and South Asian immigrants in the United States. Both are topics of wide and growing interest in India and in many countries where South Indians have settled. Swaminarayan Hinduism's growth in the past few decades in India and among Indians abroad has been remarkable: one subsect now has 8100 centers around the world where weekly meetings are held. The second focus is on the religions of South Asian immigrants: Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Sikhs and Christians. The first section is introductory and sets the stage through an analysis of the transmission of religious traditions. The second section moves from the development of Swaminarayan Hinduism and its leadership in India to its development in the United States as exemplified in Chicago. The third section analyzes the impact South Asian religions are having in the United States, and the effects that migration and modernization are having on the religions of the immigrants.

Numerous eyewitness accounts described New Orleans' famous Voodoo Queen Marie Laveaux as the most powerful woman there is. As a person of African descent and a woman she was barred from holding public offices according to Antebellum United States laws. Nevertheless, it appears that it was she who ruled over the city, not the municipal authorities. This study investigates the emergence of powerful female leadership in New Orleans' Voodoo tradition. It provides a careful examination of the cultural, historical, economic, demographic and socio-political factors that contributed both to the feminization of this religious culture and its strong female leaders. The quintessential example for this phenomenon of female power was Voodoo Queen Marie Laveaux, the most prominent and most influential Voodoo leader in the history of the city. She thus receives special attention in this analysis.

This title was first published in 2002. Drawing on primary research on the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, a millenarian New Religious Movement of Indian origin, this book examines the status of tradition in the contemporary world through a critical engagement with the recent social theory of Anthony Giddens on the emergence of a post-traditional society. Wallis examines both the ways in which forms of tradition not only persist but also flourish in the contemporary world and also the manner in which such traditions are drawn on and (re)created by individuals in their ongoing construction of self-identity. Illuminating some of the difficulties encountered when social theory is applied to 'the real world', this book also offers a way of theorising about the status of contemporary religiosity that does not refer directly to the notion of secularisation.

This title was first published in 2003:If God has departed, as Baudrillard claims, is religion still relevant? A new religious landscape is appearing in the new millennium. The middle classes with their electronic technologies are producing a culture of commodified images and signs that is radically transforming the religious landscape and re-enchanting the world. Ecstatic experiences pervade the reenchanted world. Both fundamentalism and the New Age movement promote the free flow of charisma, reshaping religion in unforeseen directions. Analysing the crisis of modernity, this book delves into the intricacies of these movements to examine the implications of religious change in the new millennium. The authors provide an incisive assessment of religious change in the West and Asia to suggest an eclecticism in re-enchantment that will usher in new ideas about charisma, consciousness and spirituality. These ideas focus on new forms of shamanism that point the way to experiences of empowerment beyond the structures of disenchantment.

From his clairvoyant reading of the Akashic Record -- the cosmic memory of all events, actions, and thoughts -- Rudolf Steiner was able to speak of aspects of the life of Jesus Christ that are not contained in the four biblical Gospels. Such research can be spoken of as a "fifth gospel." After an intense inner struggle to verify the exact nature of these events, and checking the results of his research, Steiner describes many detailed episodes from the Akashic Record. This new edition has been retranslated and features six lectures that have never before been published in English.

This title was first published in 2003. Can a text be used either to validate or to invalidate contemporary understandings? Texts may be deemed 'sacred', but sacred to whom? Do conflicting understandings matter? Is it appropriate to try to offer a resolution? For Hindus and non-Hindus, in India and beyond, Valmiki is the poet-saint who composed the epic RA mA yaAa. Yet for a vocal community of dalits (once called 'untouchables'), within and outside India, Valmiki is God. How then does one explain the popular story that he started out as an ignorant and violent bandit, attacking and killing travellers for material gain? And what happens when these two accounts, Valmiki as God and Valmiki as villain, are held simultaneously by two different religious groups, both contemporary, and both vocal? This situation came to a head with controversial demonstrations by the Valmiki community in Britain in 2000, giving rise to some searching questions which Julia Leslie now seeks to address. Exploring the relationship between sacred text and religious meaning, Leslie presents a critical, text-historical study of the figure of Valmiki drawing on the sacred texts traditionally attributed to him: the VA lmAGBPki RA mA yaAa and the YogavA siA(1)A+/-ha RA mA yaAa, both in Sanskrit. While identifying and examining the various strands of popular stories concerning Valmiki, Leslie disentangles the earliest evidence for him from the narrative threads of passing centuries, and considers the implications of that process. This ground-breaking analysis, illustrated with paintings of Valmiki, makes a unique contribution both to our understanding of the interlocking beliefs of many religious communities and to a greater awareness of the problematic relationship between sacred text and contemporary religious meaning. Invaluable to students of both the study of religions and South Asian studies, this book will also be of interest to Indian communities in the diaspora seeking to understand their roots, including (but not exclusively) the Valmikis.

Asian and Pacific Islander Americans constitute the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. They are also one of the most religiously diverse. Through them Asian traditions such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Confucianism, and Buddhism have been introduced into every major American city and across a wide swath of Middle America. The contributors to this volume provide an essential inter-disciplinary resource for the study of Asian and Pacific Islander American religion.

Popular Christianity in India explores Indian Christianity as crafted and expressed through lived experience, providing an important balance to currently available, typically theological, studies. Drawing from many disciplines, this volume unearths the multifaceted terrain of festivals, rituals, saints, miracle workers, missionaries, and visionaries in Christian India, providing a wonderful glimpse of its richness and complexities. The contributors reveal the ways in which local Christian traditions deftly challenge assumed divisions and power imbalances between East and West, Hindu and Christian, foreign and indigenous, and elite and local expressions. Whether forging complicated religious, caste, and national identities, employing religious hybridity to promote well-being, or asserting autonomy within oppressive social and religious structures, local Christianity provides a crucial means for its participants to manage their earthly needs and desires.

The Devi Gita, literally the "Song of the Goddess, " is an Eastern spiritual classic that appeared around the fifteenth century C.E.C. Mackenzie Brown provides a reader-friendly English translation of this sacred text taken from his well-regarded previous book The Devi Gita: The Song of the Goddess, A Translation, Annotation, and Commentary. Here the translation is presented uninterrupted without the scholarly annotations of the original version and in its entirety for the pleasure of all readers who wish to encounter this treasure from the world's sacred literature.

Often neglected, the Devi Gita deserves to be better known for its presentations of one of the great Hindu visions of the divine conceived in feminine terms. The work depicts the universe as created, pervaded, and protected by a supremely powerful, all-knowing, and wholly compassionate divine female. It also describes the various spiritual paths leading to realization of unity with the Goddess. The author of the Devi Gita intended for the work to supplant the famous teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita (the "Song of the Lord") from a goddess-inspired perspective.

This essential student textbook consists of seventeen sections, all written by leading scholars in their different fields. They cover all the religious traditions of South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Tibet, and East Asia. The major traditions that are described and discussed are (from the Southwest) Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Islam, and (from the East) Taoism, Confucianism and Shinto. In addition, the tradition of Bon in Tibet, the shamanistic religions of Inner Asia, and general Chinese, Korean and Japanese religion are also given full coverage. The emphasis throughout is on clear description and analysis, rather than evaluation. Ten maps are provided to add to the usefulness of this book, which has its origin in the acclaimed "Encyclopedia of Religion," edited by Mircea Eliade of the University of Chicago.

This is a subset of the Sacred Books of the East Series which includes translations of all the most important works of the seven non-Christian religions which have exercised a profound influence on the civilizations of the continent of Asia. The works have been translated by leading authorities in their field.

Index to The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope, which has remained the standard edition for more than a generation. This exhaustive index allows easy access to the individual poems and people and places of the period, making this an essential source for anyone studying eighteenth-century literature or eighteenth-century studies.

'This is a deep and intense book, written with empathy for everything involved, and is of vital global, social significance.' - Revd Mary Seller, Church Times, June 2001

'(This) book is to be welcomed...It is a sustained and interesting account of religion and environment in South and Southeast Asia...' - Gavin Flood, Bulletin of the BASR, June 2001

This critique of western systematic theology borrows insights from India and other traditions; it is not a synthesis of religious traditions. The book examines the traditional topics of systematic theology - such as the existence and nature of God, revelation and reason, religious ethics and human practice, the relation of God to the world - and allows these topics to grow in conversation with India and to change according to dialogical insights.

Although much has been written on the Afro-Catholic syncretic religions of Vodou, Candomble, and Santeria, the Spiritual Baptists--an Afro-Caribbean religion based on Protestant Christianity--have received little attention. This work offers the first detailed examination of the Spiritual Baptists or "Converted". Based on 18 months of fieldwork on the Island of St. Vincent (where the religion arose) and among Vincentian immigrants in Brooklyn, Zane's analysis makes a contribution to the literature on African-American and African Diaspora religion and the anthropology of religion more generally.