This thesis explores relationships between humans and nonhumans in the Bishnoi community. The Bishnoi are a small Vaishnavite community most densely located in Rajasthan. They are well known in North-West India for defending and protecting the environment; sometimes even sacrificing their own lives to save trees or wild animals. This thesis is informed by the author’s short-term ethnographic study in the winter of 2013. The author combines symbolic and interpretive anthropology with multispecies ethnography in order to explore issues of relatedness, exchange and embodied experience between humans and nonhumans in the Bishnoi community. This research elaborates on central themes that emerged from the fieldwork, including themes of embeddedness, duty, dharma, sacrifice, nonviolence, purity, impurity, and contemporary challenges. This research attempts to treat nonhumans as agents and participants in Bishnoi life, active in their physical and perceptual engagement with the world, and details the centrality of the nonhuman in the constitution of Bishnoi communities and identities.

The mere presence of the term īśvara in Patañjali’s Yogasūtra has come to affect the meaning of both the path and the goal of Classical Yoga as well as the meaning of the term Yoga itself. The frequent translation of the term īśvara as God leads to the system of Classical Yoga to be labeled as theistic, particularly obscuring the interpretation of īśvarapraṇidhāna, a functional component of the system, as well as perpetuating a syncretic trend that has led to the popular understanding of Yoga as ‘union with the divine’. From identifying problematic hermeneutical trends and their underlying causes, as well as understanding the term within the constraints of the original text in its original Sanskrit, the term īśvara emerges as the archetype of an ultimate reality functioning as a practical and experiential tool providing the yogi with a direct glimpse of its true nature.

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Denna studie ämnar undersöka framställningen av den hinduiska och buddhistiska karmaläran i svenska läroböcker i religionskunskap för högstadiet och gymnasiet. Genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys undersöks innehållet i fem läroböcker i syfte att undersöka framställningens fokus och dess koppling till religionskunskapsämnets styrdokument. Genom att använda Edward Saids teori om orientalism undersöks också hur förhållandet mellan öst och väst kan ha påverkat framställningen av karmaläran. Analysen visar att den karmalära som framställs är handlingsfokuserad på ett sätt som skiljer sig från hur karmaläran studeras i akademin. Det är också en karmalära som är tydligt kopplad till hinduismens och buddhismens tro på återfödelse, med en större påverkan på återfödelsen än det nuvarande livet. Diskussionen av analysen når slutsatsen att karmaläran är en nödvändig del av undervisningen, samt att läroböckernas framställningar visar vissa tecken på ett orientalistiskt förhållningssätt till hinduiska och buddhistiska traditioner.

This present study describes how two of the most popular Hindu festivals, Navarātri and Diwali, are celebrated in Sweden. With the help of six qualitative interviews with members of Hindu organization active in Sweden. The results shows that the festivals, Navarātri and Diwali, are celebrated in Sweden but a couple of adjustments have been made to the Swedish context. These adaptions concern the time aspect, the extent to which pūjā is performed, how statues are used and how to prepare for the celebration. The adjustments made in the Swedish context depend on the material and structural resources available in Sweden. The results also shows that the celebration of the festivals are important for the diaspora hindus that lives in Sweden. The festivals honor the values that Hinduism are based on therefore the festivals are important for the diaspora hindus.

I detta arbete undersöker jag vilka religiösa symboler som har betydelse för befolkningen i Velakapuram, en liten by i södra Indien och hur dessa framställs i svenska läromedel. Vidare undersöks vilka pedagogiska vinster man kan göra genom att komplettera svenska läromedel med levande beskrivningar hämtade från observationer om lokalt religiöst vardagsliv. För att åskådliggöra mina frågeställningar och mitt syfte har jag valt ett undersökande arbetssätt baserat på fältstudier i Indien kompletterat med litteraturstudier hemma. Litteraturstudien har gjorts med hjälp av en systematiserande textanalys, där jag har fokuserat på tre dimensioner, kultur, tro och genus.Mina slutsatser är att de religiösa symbolerna ger folket i Indien och speciellt i byn Velakapuram en mening åt livet. Byborna har skapat en social verklighet utifrån symbolerna som ger de vardagliga händelserna en mening. De religiösa symbolerna hjälper Indierna och framförallt byborna i Velakapuram att förstå sin tro på ett djupare sätt. De svenska läromedel jag har studerat som handlar om Indien tar upp det viktigaste inom hinduismen. I de läromedel som jag granskat saknar jag dock information om hur det indiska samhället fungerar och om de religiösa symbolerna syns inte mycket.

“Everyday Eschatology: Centering and Healing in Two Hindu Sects,” examines the two most prominent eschatological groups in North India: the Gayatri Pariwar and the Brahma Kumaris. Both organizations envision and pursue an imminent transition into a new Golden Age through self-care regimens that connect Hindu rituals to the authority of modern medical science. Rather than prepare for the end of the world by retreating from society, these groups attempt to act as custodians of societal welfare by way of goods and services meant to cleanse at once the mind, body, and environment. Drawn from ethnographic and archival fieldwork conducted at the headquarters and local-level cells of both institutions, this project demonstrates how members of both groups position everyday religious practices as the means of saving a world under-stood to be on the brink of collapse.

I det här examensarbetet undersöks Indiens största religion hinduismen och hur den framställs i fem svenska läroböcker för gymnasiet. Böckerna som har undersökts är alla skrivna för Religionskunskap A vilket är ett kärnämne som alla gymnasieelever tar del av. Syftet är att undersöka om postkoloniala tankar och värderingar återfinns i framställningen av en främmande religion, hinduismen i det här fallet. Vilka värderingar som ligger bakom kunskapsurvalet tolkar jag utifrån texterna. Undersökningen är hermeneutiskt präglad då min förförståelse ligger bakom tolkningarna jag gör. Som undersökningsverktyg används textanalys där innehållet i texterna har varit i fokus. I undersökningen delade jag upp hinduismen i fyra teman som är, trosuppfattningar, gudavärld, religiösa ceremonier och leva som hindu. Med hjälp av dessa fyra delar ska jag få en förståelse för helheten. När undersökningen genomfördes kom jag fram till att postkoloniala tankar och värderingar finns i böckerna i varierande mängd. Många av de fördomar som finns om hinduer förstärks av texterna i läroböckerna. Även om det fanns skillnader mellan böckerna gav de alla ett liknande slutresultat, det var mest detaljer såsom namn och termer som skiljde dem åt.

In this essay, seven textbooks in the subject of religion education at upper secondary school have been studied. The aim is to examine how these textbooks present women in hinduism and buddhism based on three categories; religious role, religious status and position in society and how the presentation based on the three categories has changed since 1998. As a theoretical starting point, Yvonne Hirdman's theory of gender systems and gender contracts is used, Edward Said's theory of orientalism is also used to some extent.  The results have shown that the woman is mainly presented in relation to the man. In some textbooks, women are presented in separate chapters and this can be understood and explained through the gender system principles, dichotomy and hierarchy. The religious role of women in hinduism and buddhism is presented in a few textbooks and mostly in relation to the religious role of men. The religious status of women is mainly presented based on the goddesses of hinduism and based on nuns and female monks in buddhism. The position of the hindu woman in society is presented to a relatively large extent and as subordinate to the man. The position of the buddhist woman in society is presented in a few textbooks. What emerges is primarily the subordinate position of women towards men, but also how progressive women's movements work to enable women to exercise their faith in a deeper way. It emerges from the analysis that the man is the norm in the textbooks. In some of the textbooks there is also a certain orientalist representation of women.

Several studies within the RE didactics field have shown that there is a lack of considerationwhen writing and teaching about religion, in particular Islam and eastern religions, resulting inrisks of strengthening colonial power dynamics in both education and textbooks. The purposeof this essay is to apply postcolonial theory on three Swedish textbooks made for RE educationin upper secondary school to see the extent of post-colonial power dynamics in the textbooks,the study covered the chapters in which Hinduism was depicted. The study is conducted withthe help of critical discourse analysis which was used to analyze images and texts to see ifcolonial power dynamics as well as if us vs them thinking was present in the material. Theanalysis is divided into three parts to study each textbook separately in which each textbookanalysis is divided into two parts with one text analysis and one image analysis. The studydiscovered that the textbooks did contain colonial power dynamics to some extent in bothimages and text through strengthening ideas of the west as a contrast to the east and the orientand the tendency to create a distance between the west and the east resulting in an us vs themthinking when portraying Hinduism.