As religion and politics become ever more intertwined, relationships between religion and political parties are of increasing global political significance. This handbook responds to that development, providing important results of current research involving religion and politics, focusing on: democratisation, democracy, party platform formation, party moderation and secularisation, social constituency representation and interest articulation. Covering core issues, new debates, and country case studies, the handbook provides a comprehensive overview of fundamentals and new directions in the subject. Adopting a comparative approach, it examines the relationships between religion and political parties in a variety of contexts, regions and countries with a focus on Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism. Contributions cover such topics as: religion, secularisation and modernisation; religious fundamentalism and terrorism; the role of religion in conflict resolution and peacebuilding; religion and its connection to state, democratisation and democracy; and regional case studies covering Asia, the Americas, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa. This comprehensive handbook provides crucial information for students, researchers and professionals researching the topics of politics, religion, comparative politics, secularism, religious movements, political parties and interest groups, and religion and sociology.

This seminal monograph provides the essential guidance that we need to act as responsible ecological citizens while we expand our reach beyond Earth. The emergence of numerous national space programs along with several potent commercial presences prompts our attention to urgent environmental issues like what to do with the large mass of debris that orbits Earth, potential best practices for mining our moon, how to appropriately search for microscopic life, or whether to alter the ecology of Mars to suit humans better. This book not only examines the science and morals behind these potential ecological pitfall scenarios beyond Earth, it also provides groundbreaking policy responses founded upon ethics. These effective solutions come from a critical reframing for scientific settings of the unique moral voices of diverse Buddhists from the American ethnographic field, who together delineate sophisticated yet practical values for traveling through our solar system. Along the way, Buddhists fascinatingly supply robust environmental lessons for Earth, too. As much a work of astrobiology as it is one of religious studies, this book should appeal to anyone who is interested in space travel, our human environment in large scale, or spiritual ecology.

Drawing on evidence from a wide range of classical Chinese texts, this book argues that xingershangxue, the study of "beyond form", constitutes the core argument and intellectual foundation of Daoist philosophy. The author presents Daoist xingershangxue as a typical concept of metaphysics distinct from that of the natural philosophy and metaphysics of ancient Greece since it focusses on understanding the world beyond perceivable objects and phenomena as well as names that are definable in their social, political, or moral structures. In comparison with other philosophical traditions in the East and West, the book discusses the ideas of dao, de, and "spontaneously self-so", which shows Daoist xingershangxue's theoretical tendency to transcendence. The author explains the differences between Daoist philosophy and ancient Greek philosophy and proposes that Daoist philosophy is the study of xingershangxue in nature, providing a valuable resource for scholars interested in Chinese philosophy, Daoism, and comparative philosophy.

Ratified by the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1993 and expanded in 2018, "Towards a Global Ethic (An Initial Declaration)," or the Global Ethic, expresses the minimal set of principles shared by people-religious or not. Though it is a secular document, the Global Ethic emerged after months of collaborative, interreligious dialogue dedicated to identifying a common ethical framework. This volume tests and contests the claim that the Global Ethic's ethical directives can be found in the world's religious, spiritual, and cultural traditions. The book features essays by scholars of religion who grapple with the practical implications of the Global Ethic's directives when applied to issues like women's rights, displaced peoples, income and wealth inequality, India's caste system, and more. The scholars explore their respective religious traditions' ethical response to one or more of these issues and compares them to the ethical response elaborated by the Global Ethic. The traditions included are Hinduism, Engaged Buddhism, Shi'i Islam, Sunni Islam, Confucianism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Indigenous African Religions, and Human Rights. To highlight the complexities within traditions, most essays are followed by a brief response by an expert in the same tradition. Multi-Religious Perspectives on a Global Ethic is of special interest to advanced students and scholars whose work focuses on the religious traditions listed above, on comparative religion, religious ethics, comparative ethics, and common morality.

Temples of Modernity uses ethnographic data to investigate the presence of religious ideas and practices in Indian science and engineering. Geraci shows 1) how the integration of religion, science and technology undergirds pre- and post-independence Indian nationalism, 2) that traditional icons and rituals remain relevant in elite scientific communities, and 3) that transhumanist ideas now percolate within Indian visions of science and technology. This work identifies the intersection of religion, science, and technology as a worldwide phenomenon and suggests that the study of such interactions should be enriched through attention to the real experiences of people across the globe.

This is the first attempt to understand Ramanuja in the context of his religious and philosophical tradition. It is the only work which establishes his indebtedness to his immediate predecessor Yamuna and which identifies his actual opponents. It is accordingly a contribution to the wider history of classical Indian thought and not just a consideration of a single individual and his tradition.

Becoming Vaishnava in an Ideal Vedic City centers on a growing multinational community of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) devotees in Mayapur, West Bengal. While ISKCON's history is often presented in terms of an Indian guru 'transplanting' Indian spirituality to the West, this book focusses on the efforts to bring ISKCON back to India. Paying particular attention to devotees' failure to consistently live up to ISKCON's ideals and the ongoing struggle to realize the utopian vision of an 'ideal Vedic city', this book argues that the anthropology of ethics must account for how moral systems accommodate the problem of moral failure.

This inspiring collection of writing from Tennessee preacher and farmer Ben Robert Alford provides a summary of his life's work. Dr. Alford articulates his ideas of Christian philosophy and practice for both the believer and the non-believer, in ways professional and personal. Selected from thousands of pages of documents by his son, Dance Of The Holy Nobodies preserves the legacy - and continues the ministry -- of a dedicated and grateful servant of God. "This book is a treasure. It is not simply a collection of insightful and inspiring sermons, essays, articles and other theological musings. It is, more importantly, a window into the heart and soul of a very special person." "If you are looking for thoughtful and insightful theological reflections, you have come to the right place. If you are in search of penetrating and astute church commentary, you have come to the right place. If you need inspirational and encouraging spiritual meditations, you have come to the right place. Dance of the Holy Nobodies is one of the most engaging books you will find." - from the foreword by Ted Brown, President of Martin Methodist College"

How Compassion can Transform our Politics, Economy, and Society draws together experts across disciplines - ranging from psychology to climate science, philosophy to economics, history to business - to explore the power of compassion to transform politics, our society, and our economy. The book shows that compassion can be used as the basis of a new political, economic, and social philosophy as well as a practical tool to address climate breakdown, inequality, homelessness, and more. Crucially, it also provides a detailed plan for its execution. It marks the first time that the study of compassion has been applied across multiple disciplines. The book provides a template for the study of compassion on an interdisciplinary basis and will appeal to academics, professionals, and the general reader searching for a fresh and inspiring approach to the seemingly intractable problems facing the world.

Originally published in 1956, this book brings together from the canonical writings of Buddhism, Islam and Christianity the most important of the passages in which the view of the Founder is reflected. It aims to let each of the sacred traditions tell its own story and only such comments have been added as seem necessary to bring out the full significance of the passage quoted. The final chapter summarizes some of the difficult questions which arise from a comparison of the extracts from the 3 traditions.

When this was originally published in 1950 this was the fullest biography of one of China's greatest poets that had ever appeared in any language. It tells the story of the poet's life against the background of contemporary history and, in doing so, gives a brilliant picture of Chinese life in the eighth century A.D. - during a period of the Tang Dynasty, fertile in great poets, such as Wang Wei, Tu Fu and Meng Haojan.

This full-scaled monograph, rich in factographic material, concerns Narayana Guru (1855/56--1928), a founder of a powerful socio-religious movement in Kerala. He wrote in three languages (Malayalam, Sanskrit, Tamil), drawing on three different literary conventions. The world of this complex philosophic-religious literature is brought closer to the reader with rare deft and dexterity by the Author who not only retrieves for us the original circumstances, language and poetic metre of each work but also supplies histories of their reception. Thanks to numerous glosses, comments and elucidations supplied by the Author, we can much better understand how Narayana's mystical universe creatively relates to the Tamil OEaiva Siddhanta and to Kerala's variety of Vedanta tradition. Prof. Cezary Galewicz

In this book, Charles B. Jones provides the first English language translation of one of the most important texts of modern Chinese Buddhism: monk-reformer Taixu's 'On the Establishment of the Pure Land in the Human Realm'. The essay, written in 1926 as part of Taixu's attempt to revive Chinese Buddhism with a Humanistic Buddhist approach, incorporates Western thought into a reconstruction of the idea of the 'Pure Land in the human realm'. In his commentary on the text, Jones argues that it has been widely misunderstood and mischaracterized. Jones demonstrates that, besides laying out the very modern idea of the Pure Land in the human realm as a slogan for Buddhist engagement with the problems of the modern world, the essay does not, as commonly assumed, discourage practices leading to rebirth in the Pure Land. He also shows that the 'human realm' can mean anywhere in Buddhist cosmology that humans reside, and that the essay's attempts to reconcile Buddhism with modern science is tentative and incomplete. Jones reveals that the essay promotes visions of both paradises and utopias, and that Taixu supports his ideas with many lengthy sutra quotations. The book concludes with an examination of how Taixu's followers developed the idea of the Pure Land in the human realm into a more coherent and modernized ideal.

The Routledge Handbook of Theravada Buddhism illustrates the growth and new directions of scholarship in the study of Theravada Buddhism. An in-depth guide to the distinctive features of Theravada, the Handbook will be an invaluable resource to provide structure and guidance for scholars and students of Asian Religion, Buddhism and in particular Theravada Buddhism.

In Singapore and Malaysia, the inversion of Chinese Underworld traditions has meant that Underworld demons are now amongst the most commonly venerated deities in statue form, channelled through their spirit mediums, tang-ki. The Chinese Underworld and its sub-hells are populated by a bureaucracy drawn from the Buddhist, Taoist and vernacular pantheons. Under the watchful eye of Hell's 'enforcers', the lower echelons of demon soldiers impose post-mortal punishments on the souls of the recently deceased for moral transgressions committed during their prior incarnations. Chinese religion in contemporary Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan offers an ethnography of contemporary Chinese Underworld traditions, where night-time cemetery rituals assist the souls of the dead, exorcised spirits are imprisoned in Guinness bottles, and malicious foetus ghosts are enlisted to strengthen a temple's spirit army. Understanding the religious divergences between Singapore and Malaysia (and their counterparts in Taiwan) through an analysis of socio-political and historical events, Fabian Graham challenges common assumptions about the nature and scope of Chinese vernacular religious beliefs and practices. Graham's innovative approach to alterity allows the reader to listen to first-person dialogues between the author and channelled Underworld deities. Through its alternative methodological and narrative stance, the book intervenes in debates on the interrelation between sociocultural and spiritual worlds, and promotes the destigmatisation of spirit possession and discarnate phenomena in the future study of mystical and religious traditions. -- .

This book explores the ways in which modern Hindu identities were constructed in the early nineteenth century. It draws parallels between sixteenth and eventeenth Cecntury Protestantism and the rise of modernity in the West, and the Hindu reformation in the nineteenth century which contributed to the rise of Vedantic Hindu modernity discourse in India. The nineteenth century Hindu modernity, it is argued, sought both individual flourishing and collective emancipation from Western domination. For the first time Hinduism began to be constructed as a religion of sacred texts. In particular, texts belonging to what could be loosely called Vedanta: Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. In this way, the main protagonists of this Vedantist modernity were imitating Western Protestantism, but at the same time also inventing totally novel interpretations of what it meant to be Hindu. The book traces the major ideological paths taken in this cultural-religious reformation from its originator Rammohun Roy up to its last major influence, Rabindranath Tagore. Bringing these two versions of modernity into conversation brings a unique view on the formation of modern Hindu identities. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of religious, Hindu and South Asian studies, as well as religious istory and interreligious dialogue.

Jain Ramayana Narratives: Moral Vision and Literary Innovation traces how and why Jain authors at different points in history rewrote the story of Rama and situates these texts within larger frameworks of South Asian religious history and literature. The book argues that the plot, characters, and the very history of Jain Rama composition itself served as a continual font of inspiration for authors to create and express novel visions of moral personhood. In making this argument, the book examines three versions of the Rama story composed by two authors, separated in time and space by over 800 years and thousands of miles. The first is Ravisena, who composed the Sanskrit Padmapurana ("The Deeds of Padma"), and the second is Brahma Jinadasa, author of both a Sanskrit Padmapurana and a vernacular (bhasa) version of the story titled Ram Ras ("The Story of Ram"). While the three compositions narrate the same basic story and work to shape ethical subjects, they do so in different ways and with different visions of what a moral person actually is. A close comparative reading focused on the differences between these three texts reveals the diverse visions of moral personhood held by Jains in premodernity and demonstrates the innovative narrative strategies authors utilized in order to actualize those visions. The book is thus a valuable contribution to the fields of Jain studies and religion and literature in premodern South Asia.

This book is a collection of English articles by Pan Guangdan, one of China's most distinguished sociologists and eugenicists and also a renowned expert in education. Pan is a prolific scholar, whose collected works number some fourteen volumes. Pan's daughters Pan Naigu, Pan Naimu and Pan Naihe-all scholars of anthropology and sociology-began editing their father's published works and surviving manuscripts around 1978. The collected articles, written between 1923 and 1945, are representative of Pan's insights on sociobiology, ethnology and eugenics, covering topics such as Christianity, opium, domestic war and China-Japan relations. The title of the book is taken from the fascinating two-part article "Socio-biological Implications in Confucianism", which essentially reworks Confucius as a kind of "forefather" of socio-biological and eugenic thinking, showing Pan's promotion of "traditional" values. These articles, mostly published in Chinese Students' Monthly and The China Critic, offer an excellent point of entry into Pan's ideas on population and eugenics, his polemics on family and marriage, and his intellectual positioning and self-fashioning. This collection is of great reference value, allowing readers to gain an overall and in-depth understanding of the development of Pan's academic thought, and to explore the spiritual world of the scholars brought together by The China Critic who were dedicated to rebuilding the Chinese culture and bridging the West and the East.

Every human soul is divine and valuable. An embodied being's ultimate purpose is the enjoyment of Supreme bliss as a free soul (Mukta, salvation, liberation) in the highest heaven. Enjoyment is also the basis of happiness upon earth. It leads to the spiritual enlightenment for happy, healthy, and peaceful life and environment. The knowledge of self is what leads to the knowledge of God and this knowledge is the road to eternal happiness or bliss. Real happiness cannot be found externally, it must be realized within. The soul of a man is in the hidden structure of God. He is inside all of us. All life comes from God. The causes of unhappiness are our ego, our prejudice, our desire, and our impropriety. There must not be any lust and hatred, neither longing for one thing, nor any loathing the opposite. The world is spiraling toward conflict, belligerence, and disharmony and is now going through an unprecedented spiritual crisis, class confrontation, calamity, and nuclear and terrorists' threats. The rise of drug use, the rise of broken families, the rise of the number of single parents, the rise of school and public space mass shootings, the rise of suicides and depression, the rise of sexual scandals among priests and media, rise of overuse of iPad and smartphones by young kids are all threatening our home, society, schools, and the environment with vicious violence, menacing insecurity, wild protests, and rampant immorality.

The Shoshinge is a gatha of particular importance from The Kyogyoshinso by Shinran (1173-1262). Living in Nenbutsu is a translation of, and commentary on the Shoshinge, which means Hymn on the Right Faith in Nenbutsu. In the teaching of Pure Land Buddhism, the term is usually understood as a particular 'practice' by virtue of which we attain birth in the Pure Land and ultimately the 'realisation' of Supreme Enlightenment. The Shin Buddhist notion of Nenbutsu, however, is something entirely different. In Shin Buddhism the Nenbutsu is actually seen as the working of Amida Buddha's great love and compassion, his call to all of us sentient beings to come to him just as we are without any reservation. This new translation and commentary will explore the Shoshinge in all its depth and meaning.

Vital Post-Secular Perspectives on Chinese Philosophical Issues presents a number of contemporary philosophical issues from a wide range of Chinese philosophical texts, figures, and sub-traditions that are usually not addressed in English studies of Chinese philosophical traditions. Lauren F. Pfister presents new perspectives in three parts: the first part offers critical perspectives on the life and works of one of the most significant 20th century Chinese philosophers and historian of Chinese philosophical traditions, Feng Youlan (1895-1990); the second part explores questions related to Ruist ("Confucian") theism and the complicated textual developments within two canonical Ruist texts, ending with a critique of a 21st century translation and interpretation of one of those two classical texts; the third part presents philosophical assessments of 20th and 21st century cultural issues that have had immense social and interpretive impacts in contemporary Chinese contexts - Chinese utopian projects, Chinese netizens in "Human Flesh Searches," and questions about the links between sageliness and saintliness in Ruist and Christian communities.

In this third decade of the 21st century, deep problems plague our world. Many people lack adequate nutrition, health care, and education, because-while there is enough wealth for everyone to meet these basic needs-most of it is tightly controlled by precious few. Global warming causes droughts, floods, rising sea levels, and soon the forced migrations of millions of people. In this book, philosopher Graham Priest explains why we find ourselves in this situation, defines the nature of the problems we face, and explains how we might solve and move beyond our current state. The first part of this book draws on Buddhist philosophy, Marx's analysis of capitalism, and their complementary role in explaining our present crisis and the events that led us here. In the second part of the book, Priest turns to the much harder question of how one might go about creating a more rational and humane world. Here, he draws again on Buddhist and Marxist ideas as well as some key aspects of anarchist thought. His discussion of the need for bottom-up control of production, power, ideology, and an emerging awareness of our interdependence is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of the planet and our latent capacity to care for each other. Key Features Explains the necessary elements of Marxist, Buddhist, and anarchist thought-no background knowledge of political theory or Buddhism is necessary Shows how Buddhist and Marxist notions of persons are complementary Convincingly shows capitalism's role in creating current socio-economic problems Provides an analysis of the corrosiveness of top-down power structures and why they should be eliminated in a post-capitalist state Discusses capitalism's role in war, environmental degradation, and race and gender-based oppression