The study of Ephesians has been approached in multiple ways by scholars. The dominant scholarly debates on Ephesians center on the issues of authorship, to whom the letter was addressed, its comparison with Colossians, and the Jew-Gentile conflict. Scholars have discussed the theme of salvation in their textual and theological analysis and commentary. Most of these discussions do not adequately explain the meaning of salvation at the discourse level. Scholars have suggested a wide range of meanings of salvation in Ephesians: forgiveness of sins (1:7), deliverance from the grip of the evil supernatural powers that controlled them before their conversion (2:2; 6:11, 12), reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles (2:16), and reception of spiritual gifts to the service of the Church (4:7). Salvation in Ephesians is also explained as a rescue from death, sin, and disobedience; from this present world-age; from bondage to the ruler and principalities of the air; and from God’s wrath. It is being freed from the ways of the world and the ruler of the air (2:2^1); being seated with Christ in heavenly realms (2:6); being the workmanship of God; being made alive in Christ (2:5); being created in Christ Jesus (2:10). There is no consensus among scholars regarding the temporal meaning of salvation. The meaning of salvation in Ephesians must be studied in the context of the letter. There is no major study that has applied Systemic Functional Linguistic tools to the study of Ephesians. Halliday’s model of register analysis provides tools to analyze the context of situation of Ephesians, the study of field, tenor, and mode of Ephesians. These three components of register analysis, show that the linguistic choices made by Paul describe the context of situation in which the meaning of salvation is communicated. This study shows that Paul’s idea of salvation in Ephesians is one of his prominent topics. It explains that salvation is a divinely planned entity. God executes and achieves it through Jesus Christ. Salvation is the gracious gift of God. The mystery of God’s eternal plan of salvation in Jesus Christ reveals that God has incorporated the Gentiles in his plans through adoption in Jesus Christ. It emphasizes the meaning of salvation in terms of Gentiles’ deliverance from their former spiritual bondages. Paul’s Gentile readers’ former spiritual condition corresponds to the contemporary Hindu spiritual condition. They are under spiritual bondage through their magical practices and worshiping of idols. Thus a cross-cultural application to evaluate the meaning of salvation in a Hindu context is warranted / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p> The Chandogya Upanisad is one of the most important pieces of literature in orthodox Hinduism. It contains some of the most crucial statements for the religion about salvation and ritualistic uses of language. This dissertation attempts to explain to modern Western readers what the Chandogya Upanisad says about the nature of language and in so doing explain the meaning of the Upanisad. In order to do this the traditional explanations of the text have been considered as carefully as posslble. One aspect of this consideration has been that whereas previous explanations of the text have not considered the implications of the ChU's relation to the Chandogya Brahmana this has. Another aspect has been that whereas previous explanations have not sought to understand this text as a complete and necessary whole this one has. </p> <p> Consequently part of the dissertation seeks implicitly and explicitly to demarcate the assumptions of previous scholarship from the assumptions of the ChU. The result of this is to show modern scholarship's desire to point out the historicality of the ChU and the ChU's desire to point out the uninformativeness historicality. The paradigmatic case of these incompatible desires is etymology which in the ChU is seen to imply the unity inherent to eternal being and in modern linguistics is seen to be the record of the historicality of beings, in particular, man. Another result of this part of the investigation was to discover that the transmission of upasana's (teachings) was a central cohesive theme of the ChU and that the ritualization of speech was inherent to this transmission. </p> <p> The central thesis of this dissertation is that chanted or ritualistic language is said in the ChU to be founded in desire which necessarily implies a dependent order of being. Language, which exists within this being, articulates various limits of dependency most authentically in a ritualistic manner. The primordial form of ritualistic speech is the pronoun, tat, which implies that the central phenomenon of all things is that they can be counted. We show during the course of the explanation of this thesis how the ChU points out what this dependency and numericality mean with respect to sacrifice, religious language, etymology, social order, propriety, duty, and education. In so doing we hope to have explained many of the more obscure portions of the text as well as to have presented the context in which several later theological discussions took place in the tradition. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Background: Nursing is a profession in which one will face death in different circumstances,and how the nurse will be affected by the death of their patient may vary with the nurses’ cultural and religious background. Bali-Hinduism is the most practised religion on Bali in Indonesia, permeating the inhabitants’ day-to-day life. Aim: The purpose of this study was to explore Balinese nurses’ experiences of the death of a patient in their care, in the light of their cultural surroundings and background. Method: Semi-structured interviews analysed with qualitative content analysis. The material was organized in themes and subthemes. The participants were one male and three female nurses from a private hospital in Denpasar, Indonesia. Results: The results showed that the Balinese nurses were leaning rather heavily on their religious beliefs in their daily work, and that their cultural situations greatly affect their way of coping with patients’ deaths. Three major themes emerged during the analysis: cultural and religious aspects, emotional reactions to patients’ deaths, and factors that aid coping. Discussion: Many of the ideas the nurses expressed could be further understood when learning more about Balinese culture and Bali-Hinduism, for example the notion that the physical health of a person is closely related to the will and intention of that person. Similar to Parse’s view of the human being, the Balinese perceive the human being as a versatile and complex being, connected to and affected by various aspects such as background, culture, surroundings, religious context, education, family and other human beings. The results were discussed in comparison to recent research on the subject and to Parse’s theory of humanbecoming. / Bakgrund: Att arbeta som sjuksköterska innebär att möta döden i olika situationer, och hur sjuksköterskan reagerar på sin patients bortgång varierar med sjuksköterskans kulturella och religiösa bakgrund. Denna studie fokuserar på den balinesiska sjuksköterskans upplevelser och undersöker vad för slags copingstrategier hon använder. Bali-Hinduism är den mest utbredda religionen på Bali i Indonesien, och genomsyrar invånarnas vardag. Syfte: Studiens syfte var att undersöka balinesiska sjuksköterskors upplevelser av patienters död, i ljuset av deras kulturella omgivning och bakgrund. Metod: Semistrukturerade intervjuer som analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultaten diskuterades i jämförelse med aktuell forskning och Parses teori om humanbecoming. Resultat: Resultatet visar att balinesiska sjuksköterskor förlitar sig på religionen i hög grad i det dagliga arbetet, och att deras kulturella sammanhang kraftigt påverkar deras sätt att handskas med patienters död. Tre teman framträdde under analysen: kulturella och religiösa aspekter, sjuksköterskan och döden och faktorer som stödjer coping. Diskussion: Många av de tankar som de balinesiska sjuksköterskorna uttryckte kunde förstås djupare vid inhämtning av mer kunskap om den balinesiska kulturen och Bali-Hinduism, exempelvis föreställningen att en persons fysiska hälsa är nära sammankopplad med hennes vilja och intention. I likhet med Parses syn på människan, ser balineserna människan som en föränderlig och komplex varelse som är ansluten till och påverkas av olika faktorer såsom bakgrund, kultur, omgivning, religiös kontext, utbildning, familj och andra människor.

In its Constitution, postcolonial India acknowledges the caste-based practice of "untouchability" as a social and historical wrong, and seeks to redress the effects of this wrong through compensatory discrimination. Dalits are recognized by the state as having suffered the effects of untouchability, and thus as eligible for statutory protections and remedial measures, on the condition that they profess no religion "different from the Hindu religion" (a condition later expanded to include Sikhism and Buddhism as well). The present work charts the career of the idea underlying this condition of recognition - the idea that the "untouchable," insofar as she has not converted to Islam, Christianity, or another "world religion," must be Hindu - and its consequences, from the late nineteenth century to the present. Historically and ethnographically grounded in the community life of the sanitation labor castes - those Dalits castes that perform the vast majority of South Asia's sanitation work - in the north Indian city of Lucknow, the study tracks the idea from its ruptive colonial beginnings to its propagation by Hindu nationalists, induction into mainstream nationalism and installation in the edifice of postcolonial law. This is also an account of the everyday effects of postcolonial India's regime of recognition in the present: what it confers, what it transforms, what hides in its shadows.

The reformed Hindu organisations play a major role in the provision of religious and cultural support within the local Hindu community. This study examines the role played by the reformed Hindu organisations in the provision of religious and cultural information within the greater Ethekwini region. The research methodology includes triangulation, where qualitative and quantitative research is employed. Interviews, historical research, observation as well as document and content analysis assists in the collation of information. This exploratory study seeks to determine the kinds of information formats and methods of dissemination that are used by the organisations. Religious and cultural information offered through other services such as the languages classes are discussed. The Indian languages used by the religious leaders are explored. The level of library services offered, the contents and authorship of the published material are investigated. Non-print media and problems associated with the use of the non-print media are discussed. Also discussed are interpersonal means of information dissemination and preservation, like the oral tradition of singing and delivering talks. Essential details of classification in ancient Indian libraries are included in the study since libraries have been a part of Hindu temples and universities from ancient times. Brief historical information regarding the arrival of the Indians in South Africa and the subsequent establishment of the Hindu religion within KwaZulu-Natal is provided. Reasons for the development and support given to the establishment of the reformed Hindu organisations are outlined. An analysis of the interviews conducted covering all the objectives of the study is also included. The collections held by the different libraries/library services are analysed. The significant role played by the reformed Hindu organisations in the preservation and dissemination of religious and cultural information presented in a variety of formats is discussed in the concluding remarks. The researcher has included recommendations that would benefit the participating organisations in their efforts as preservers and disseminators of religious and cultural information. / Thesis (M.I.S)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1994.

This thesis is concerned with the ideas of two of the most prominent thinkers within the 'fundamentalist' religious movements that have become so prominent over the last few decades in Pakistan and India; Maulana Maududi of the Muslim Jamaat-I-Islami and M.S. Golwalkar, of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Though both are now dead, their ideas live on in the thinking and deeds of others. This thesis explores a comparison of the ideas of these men and their radical/fundamentalist ideologies with a focus on the way they viewed the relationship between religon and the state. Others have established that such a comparison between significant individuals, who lived in the same historical timeframe, and in this case the same geographical and political contexts, offers valuable insight into the situations/nations in which they were directly involved. / Thesis (MArts(ReligionStudies))--University of South Australia, 2001.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007.

The purpose of the thesis is to examine the relationship between social structure and ritual. It is based on data collected in a peasant village in Visakhapatnam District, Andhra Pradesh, South India, over a period of twenty-three months 1970-1972). In this village, in which Gavara farmers are the dominant caste, the formal organizing principles of the society are hierarchy and interdependence. A detailed statistical survey of the realities of the society reveals that these principles, while on the whole upheld, are constantly under challenge. Women constantly challenge male dominance in domestic economic affairs and disputes and also play a major role in the high degree of marital instability and divorce. Brothers pursue their own households' interests to the detriment of their interdependent co-operation with each other. Between castes, economic relations do not always conform to a strictly hierarchical pattern. The caste hierarchy itself is a mass of discrepant unreciprocated claims. In the face of these violations and contradictory pressures it is ritual activity and its symbolism which define and uphold the formal conventions of social hierarchy and interdependence. This is achieved through the constant repetition of symbols of respect and in the principal ritual act, puja. This symbolic acting out of hierarchy is thus presented through rituals as the epitome of morality itself. The subordinate role of women is similarly defined by ritual concepts. The woman who is subordinated to her husband is virtuous and auspicious. A woman who becomes a widow is no longer subordinate to an elder male and is inauspicious. Performances of rituals of the major agricultural festivals foster ideal models of inter-caste cooperation by activating responsibilities for castes to participate interdependently. They are, however, also occasions through which numerous political and economic rivalries find expression.

The study aims to investigate which kind of concept teachers at secondary level use in their education about the two religions, Buddhism and Hinduism. The study also aims to investigate if there is an ambiguity in the different concept and to see where teachers gather their information about the different concept. The study is inductive where written interviews have been used when collecting data. The results show that teachers use their textbooks available at their school to gather material. The results also show that there is a certain ambiguity in what kind of words that can be classified as concept. Words for buildings et cetera have been used by teachers as concept. The study also show that textbooks are different in their opinions about meaning of different concept and that concept used by teachers are not described in the mentioned textbooks.