This book is a study of the formation and the practice of Buddhist canons and an attempt to present as fully as possible the panorama of Chinese Buddhist faith. The book uses textual and archaeological sources, including Dunhuang texts, and adopts multiple perspectives such as textual evidence, historical circumstances, social life, as well as the intellectual background at the time.

Throughout history, Jews have often been regarded, and treated, as "strangers." In The Stranger in Early Modern and Modern Jewish Tradition, authors from a wide variety of disciplines discuss how the notion of "the stranger" can offer an integrative perspective on Jewish identities, on the non-Jewish perceptions of Jews, and on the relations between Jews and non-Jews in an innovative way. Contributions from history, philosophy, religion, sociology, literature, and the arts offer a new perspective on the Jewish experience in early modern and modern times: in contact and conflict, in processes of attribution and allegation, but also self-reflection and negotiation, focused on the figure of the stranger.

By the end of the Second World War, Germany was in ruins and its Jewish population so gravely diminished that a rich cultural life seemed unthinkable. And yet, as surviving Jews returned from hiding, the camps, and their exiles abroad, so did their music. Transcending Dystopia tells the story of the remarkable revival of Jewish musical activity that developed in postwar Germany against all odds. Author Tina Fruhauf provides a kaleidoscopic panorama of musical practices in worship and social life across the country to illuminate how music contributed to transitions and transformations within and beyond Jewish communities in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Drawing on newly unearthed sources from archives and private collections, this book covers a wide spectrum of musical activity-from its role in commemorations and community events to synagogue concerts and its presence on the radio-across the divided Germany until the Fall of the Wall in 1989. Fruhauf's use of mobility as a conceptual framework reveals the myriad ways in which the reemergence of Jewish music in Germany was shaped by cultural transfer and exchange that often relied on the circulation of musicians, their ideas, and practices within and between communities. By illuminating the centrality of mobility to Jewish experiences and highlighting how postwar Jewish musical practices in Germany were defined by politics that reached across national borders to the United States and Israel, this pioneering study makes a major contribution to our understanding of Jewish life and culture in a transnational context.

In an era of environmental crisis, narratives of 'hidden lands' are resonant. Understood as sanctuaries in times of calamity, Himalayan hidden lands or sbas yul have shaped the lives of many peoples of the region. Sbas yul are described by visionary lamas called 'treasure finders' who located hidden lands and wrote guidebooks to them. Scholarly understandings of sbas yul as places for spiritual cultivation and refuge from war have been complicated recently. Research now explores such themes as the political and economic role of 'treasure finders', the impact of sbas yul on indigenous populations, and the use of sbas yul for environmental protection and tourism. This book showcases recent scholarship on sbas yul from historical and contemporary perspectives.

The birth of modern Jewish studies can be traced to the nineteenth-century emergence of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, a movement to promote a scholarly approach to the study of Judaism and Jewish culture. Frontiers of Jewish Scholarship offers a collection of essays examining how Wissenschaft extended beyond its original German intellectual contexts and was transformed into a diverse, global field. From the early expansion of the new scholarly approaches into Jewish publications across Europe to their translation and reinterpretation in the twentieth century, the studies included here collectively trace a path through largely neglected subject matter, newly recognized as deserving attention. Beginning with an introduction that surveys the field's German origins, fortunes, and contexts, the volume goes on to document dimensions of the growth of Wissenschaft des Judentums elsewhere in Europe and throughout the world. Some of the contributions turn to literary and semantic issues, while others reveal the penetration of Jewish studies into new national contexts that include Hungary, Italy, and even India. Individual essays explore how the United States, along with Israel, emerged as a main center for Jewish historical scholarship and how critical Jewish scholarship began to accommodate Zionist ideology originating in Eastern Europe and eventually Marxist ideology, primarily in the Soviet Union. Finally, the focus of the volume moves on to the land of Israel, focusing on the reception of Orientalism and Jewish scholarly contacts with Yemenite and native Muslim intellectuals. Taken together, the contributors to the volume offer new material and fresh approaches that rethink the relationship of Jewish studies to the larger enterprise of critical scholarship while highlighting its relevance to the history of humanistic inquiry worldwide.

The 7 chakras located along your spine up to the crown of your head may be the biggest secret Western conventional health care is keeping from you. Bonus: Exclusive Gift Inside! In this book you'll discover How to Clear your Energetic Blockages, Radiate Energy and Finally heal yourself. What if I told you that your body had the ability to heal itself through the use of chakras -- unseen spinning wheels of energy that are found at crucial areas along your spine? If you've never heard of chakras before you may be a bit skeptical about their existence, let alone the health and natural influence they offer your body. This book will not only introduce you to these potent vortices of health and wholeness, but it'll also reveal the secrets that make rebalancing and awakening them seem like child's play.

Warsaw was once home to the largest and most diverse Jewish community in the world. It was a center of rich varieties of Orthodox Judaism, Jewish Socialism, Diaspora Nationalism, Zionism, and Polonization. This volume is the first to reflect on the entire history of the Warsaw Jewish community, from its inception in the late 18th century to its emergence as a Jewish metropolis within a few generations, to its destruction during the German occupation and tentative re-emergence in the postwar period. The highly original contributions collected here investigate Warsaw Jewry's religious and cultural life, press and publications, political life, and relations with the surrounding Polish society. This monumental volume is dedicated to Professor Antony Polonsky, chief historian of the new Warsaw Museum for the History of Polish Jews, on the occasion of his 75th birthday.

’n Stil gemoed verskyn oorspronklik in 1993 in Engels onder die titel Tranquil Mind. Die eerste Afrikaanse uitgawe verskyn in 1997, en die tyd is dus ryp vir ’n heruitgawe. ’n Stil gemoed is ’n eenvoudige inleiding tot die Boeddhisme en meditasie. Die Boeddhisme is wesenlik ’n aantal metodes om met die verstand en gemoed om te gaan. As ons hierdie metodes verstaan en op ons lewens toepas, sal hulle ons inherente vermoe om innerlike vrede, erbarming en wysheid te ervaar laat ontplooi deur die potensiaal van ons gees te ontwikkel. Mediteerders in die Weste ervaar unieke probleme as gevolg van hul kulturele, sosiale en sielkundige agtergrond. Aan die hand van sy uitgebreide akademiese en praktiese ervaring stel die skrywer van hierdie inleiding die onderwerp bekend op ’n manier wat met die invloede rekening hou.

This is the first collection of studies entirely devoted to the terminological pair dar al-islam / dar al-harb, "the abode of Islam" and "the abode of war", apparently widely known as representative of "the Islamic vision" of the world, but in fact almost unexplored. A team of specialists in different fields of Islamic studies investigates the issue in its historical and conceptual origins as well as in its reception within the different genres of Muslim written production. In contrast to the fixed and permanent categories they are currently identified with, the multifaceted character of these two notions and their shifting meanings is set out through the analysis of a wide range of contexts and sources, from the middle ages up to modern times. Contributors are Francisco Apellaniz, Michel Balivet, Giovanna Calasso, Alessandro Cancian, Eric Chaumont, Roberta Denaro, Maribel Fierro, Chiara Formichi, Yohanan Friedmann, Giuliano Lancioni, Yaacov Lev, Nicola Melis, Luis Molina, Antonino Pellitteri, Camille Rhone-Quer, Francesca Romana Romani, Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, Roberto Tottoli, Raoul Villano, Eleonora Di Vincenzo and Francesco Zappa.

Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History 9 (CMR 9) covering Western and Southern Europe in the period 1600-1700 is a further volume in a general history of relations between the two faiths from the seventh century to the early 20th century. It comprises a series of introductory essays and also the main body of detailed entries which treat all the works, surviving or lost, that have been recorded. These entries provide biographical details of the authors, descriptions and assessments of the works themselves, and complete accounts of manuscripts, editions, translations and studies. The result of collaboration between numerous leading scholars, CMR 9, along with the other volumes in this series is intended as a basic tool for research in Christian-Muslim relations. Section Editors: Clinton Bennett, Luis F. Bernabe Pons, Jaco Beyers, Karoline Cook, Lejla Demiri, Martha Frederiks, David D. Grafton, Stanislaw Grodz, Alan Guenther, Emma Loghin, Gordon Nickel, Claire Norton, Reza Pourjavady, Douglas Pratt, Radu Paun, Peter Riddell, Umar Ryad, Mehdi Sajid, Cornelia Soldat, Karel Steenbrink, Davide Tacchini, Ann Thomson, Carsten Walbiner.

This volume approaches the topic of mobility in Southeast Europe by offering the first detailed historical study of the land route connecting Istanbul with Belgrade. After this route that diagonally crosses Southeast Europe had been established in Roman times, it was as important for the Byzantines as the Ottomans to rule their Balkan territories. In the nineteenth century, the road was upgraded to a railroad and, most recently, to a motorway. The contributions in this volume focus on the period from the Middle Ages to the present day. They explore the various transformations of the route as well as its transformative role for the cities and regions along its course. This not only concerns the political function of the route to project the power of the successive empires. Also the historical actors such as merchants, travelling diplomats, Turkish guest workers or Middle Eastern refugees together with the various social, economic and cultural effects of their mobility are in the focus of attention. The overall aim is to gain a deeper understanding of Southeast Europe by foregrounding historical continuities and disruptions from a long-term perspective and by bringing into dialogue different national and regional approaches.

In Hindu Gods in West Africa, Wuaku offers an account of the histories, beliefs and practices of the Hindu Monastery of Africa and the Radha Govinda Temple, two Hindu Temples in Ghana. Using historical material and data from his field work in southern Ghana, Wuaku shows how these two Hindu Temples build their traditions on popular Ghanaian religious notions about the powerful magicality of India's Hindu gods. He explores how Ghanaian soldiers who served in the colonial armies in India, Sri Lanka, and Burma during World War II, Bollywood films, and local magicians, have contributed to the production and the spreading of these cultural ideas. He argues that while Ghanaian worshippers appropriated and deployed the alien Hindu religious world through their own cultural ideas,as they engage Hindu beliefs and rituals in negotiating challenges their own worldviews would change considerably.

Sayyid Qutb is widely considered the guiding intellectual of radical Islam, with a direct line connecting him to Osama bin Laden. But Qutb has too often been treated maliciously or reductively-"the Philosopher of Islamic Terror," as Paul Berman famously put it in the New York Times Magazine.
James Toth offers an even-handed account of Sayyid Qutb and shows him to be a much more complex figure than the many one-dimensional portraits would have us believe. Qutb first gained notice as a novelist, literary critic, and poet but then turned to religious and political criticism aimed at the Egyptian government and Muslims he deemed insufficiently pious. After a two-year sojourn in the U.S., he returned to Egypt even more radicalized and joined the Muslim Brotherhood, eventually taking charge of its propaganda operation. When Brotherhood members were accused of assassinating Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the group was outlawed and Qutb imprisoned. He was executed in 1966, becoming the first martyr to the Islamist cause. Using an analytical approach that investigates without passing judgment, Toth traces the life and thought of Qutb, giving attention not only to his well-known Signposts on the Road, but also to his less-studied works like Social Justice in Islam and his 30-volume Qur'anic commentary, In the Shade of the Qur'an. Toth's aim is to give Qutb's ideas a fair hearing, to measure their impact, and to treat him like other intellectuals who inspire revolutions, however unpopular they may be.
In offering a more nuanced account of Qutb, one that moves beyond the cartoonish depictions of him as the evil genius lurking behind today's terrorists, Sayyid Qutb deepens our understanding of a central figure of radical Islam and, indeed, our understanding of radical Islam itself.

Aelius Aristides' Hieroi Logoi present a unique first-person narrative from the ancient world-a narrative that seems at once public and private, artful and naive. While scholars have embraced the Logoi as a rich source for Imperial-era religion, politics, and elite culture, the style of the text has presented a persistent stumbling block to literary analysis. Setting this dream-memoir of illness and divine healing in the context of Aristides' professional concerns as an orator, this book investigates the text's rhetorical aims and literary aspirations. At the Limits of Art argues that the Hieroi Logoi are an experimental work. Incorporating numerous dream accounts and narratives of divine cure in a multi-layered and open text, Aristides works at the limits of rhetorical convention to fashion an authorial voice that is transparent to the divine. Reading the Logoi in the context of contemporary oratorical practices, and in tandem with Aristides' polemical orations and prose hymns, the book uncovers the professional agendas motivating this unusual self-portrait. Aristides' sober view of oratory as a sacred pursuit was in conflict with a widespread contemporary preference for spectacular public performance. In the Hieroi Logoi, Aristides claims a place in the world of the Second Sophistic on his own terms, offering a vision of his professional inspiration in a style that pushes the limits of literary convention.

"Islam and the Glorious Ka'abah" presents a unique guide that provides the background information about Islam since the time of Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him). It begins at the time when he came to Makkah and left his wife, Hajar, and his baby son, Ismael. Years later he journeys back to Makkah to meet his son who by then has grown up to be a young man, and built with him the Ka'aba, which became the center-point for the Muslims around the world and it provides the direction for their prayers and worshipping Allah in a uni ed way.

Author Sayed / Farouq M. Al-Huseini offers a wide range of information about the religion of Islam, its teachings and fundamental beliefs, and the worshipping acts of its believers. He explains the holy book of Islam, the Qur'an, explaining how its revelations began and what it contains.

Additionally, the text includes a summary of the life of the prophet of Islam, Mohammad (peace be upon him), from his birth and early years through his receiving of the revelations and, ultimately, his prophethood. It also covers his propagation of Islam in Makkah and migration to Al Madinah, where the cradle of Islam was established. Most importantly, this guide explores his personality, his sayings, and his deeds, which have been changing the world for fourteen centuries.

Human sacrifice, a spirited heroine, a quest ending in a hairsbreadth escape, the touching reunion of long-lost siblings, and exquisite poetry-these features have historically made Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris one of the most influential of Greek tragedies. Yet, despite its influence and popularity in the ancient world, the play remains curiously under-investigated in both mainstream cultural studies and more specialized scholarship. With Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris, Edith Hall provides a much-needed cultural history of this play, giving as much weight to the impact of the play on subsequent Greek and Roman art and literature as on its manifestations since the discovery of the sole surviving medieval manuscript in the 1500s. The book argues that the reception of the play is bound up with its spectacular setting on the southern coast of the Crimean peninsula in what is now the Ukraine, a territory where world history has often been made. However, it also shows that the play's tragicomic tenor and escape plot have had a tangible influence on popular culture, from romantic fiction to Hollywood action films. The thirteen chapters illustrate how reactions to the play have evolved from the ancient admiration of Aristotle and Ovid, the Christian responses of Milton and Catherine the Great, the anthropological ritualists and theatrical Modernists including James Frazer and Isadora Duncan, to recent feminist and postcolonial dramatists from Mexico to Australia. Individual chapters are devoted to the most significant adaptations of the tragedy, Gluck's opera Iphigenie en Tauride and Goethe's verse drama Iphigenie auf Tauris. Richly illustrated and accessibly written, with all texts translated into English, Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris argues elegantly for a reappraisal of this Euripidean masterpiece.