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[German Version] I. Terminology – II. Religious Studies – III. Systematic Theology – IV. Social Sciences – V. Practical Theology I. Terminology The term fundamentalism was used originally as a self-description by a coalition of conservative Protestant groups that emerged in the 1870s in the USA. In 1919 this coalition united to form the World's Christian Fundamentals Association. The first written attestation of the term was in the title of a series published in the USA between 1909 and 1915 entitled The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. Citing the verbal inspiration an…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Archaeology – III. Iconography and the Bible – IV. Christian Iconography – V. Jewish Iconography – VI. Islamic Iconography – VII. Buddhist Iconography – VIII. Hindu Iconography I. Religious Studies Iconography (Gk εἰκονογραϕία/ eikonographía) originally meant the description of images (Arist. Poet. XV; Strabo XV 1.19), but nowadays is used to refer to the methodical study of images. Where scholars distinguish between iconography, iconology , and iconics (Ger. Ikonik), iconography denotes the description of the object, …

[German Version] The noun Yoga derives from the Sanskrit root yuj, “harness”; in religious and philosophical contexts, it is understood in the sense of harnessing the forces that lead to a spiritual goal such as redemption (IX; X) and (esp. in the case of Indian authors) in the sense of “connection” (with the divine). The earliest evidence of Yoga appears in the later Upaniṣads and epics (beginning c. 5th cent. bce). The Yogasūtras of Patañjali (c. 4th cent. ce) belong to the six systems of Indian philosophy; they summarize various Yoga systems (including Buddhist) on the…

[German Version] or karman (Sanskrit: “action”) designates, among other things, the action that binds the human being into the cycle of rebirths (Reincarnation), which is called saṃsāra in Sanskrit. The origins of this doctrine are obscure; the Brāhmaṇas speak of the “redeath” through which a deceased person reenters the world of the living from the world of the ancestors. Already in the early Upaniṣads (between the 8th and 5th cents. bce), the notion of rebirth is linked to the retribution of deeds on the basis of ethical considerations: “He who does good will be…

[German Version] designates, in Indian cosmology, the basic cycle of an era (II), i.e. a day in the life of the creator god Brahmā (Brahman), who lives 100 years. This day is composed of sub-cycles ( yugas, mahāyugas, manvantaras) and lasts 4,320,000 earth years until the dis-¶ solution ( pralaya) of the universe and the equally long night, which is followed by a new creation. Catharina Kiehnle Bibliography A.L. Basham, The Wonder that was India, 1967, 1998, 320–322.

[German Version] I. General – II. History and Culture – III. Religious History – IV. History of Christianity I. General The designation “India,” Gk ἰνδός/ indós, Latinized as indus, goes back to Sanskrit sindhu (orig. “boundary”?) through the intermediary of Old Persian hindu; it is a designation of the River Sindhu and of the Indus region, from which Persian Hindūstān, “Place/territory of the Hindus,” is derived. The Indians themselves called the land (among other designations) Bhārata, “[Land of the] Descendants of Bhārata” (the l…

[German Version] “The black” goddess, who is venerated throughout India (III, 1) but especially in Bengal, is attested since the 6th century ce. She is widely known in her main form: disheveled hair, fangs, tongue hanging out, blood-smeared lips, naked and haggard in appearance, with a garland of skulls and a skirt made of cut-off human arms, standing on the inert Śiva. Usually four-armed, she holds a sword in her upper left hand, in the lower one the severed head of a demon. She is frequently regarded as the personi…

[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. Indian Religions I. History of Religion Attempts are found in all religious traditions to set history in order, and either to interpret it as a non-recurring process, or else to fit it into a succession of cycles, frequently linked to etiological and/or eschatological considerations in order to explain present conditions. First of all, eras may represent an elementary division, with the time in which mankind is living, for example, being contrasted w…

[English Version] . Y. ist ein von der Sanskrit-Wurzel yuj, »anschirren, anspannen«, abgeleitetes Nomen, das im rel.-philos. Kontext als »Anspannen« (der Kräfte auf ein spirituelles Ziel wie Erlösung [: IX., X.] hin), und, bes. von indischen Autoren, als »Verbindung« (mit dem Göttlichen) verstanden wird. Die ersten expliziten Zeugnisse für y. finden sich in jüngeren Upaniṣaden und Epen (ab ca.5.Jh. v.Chr.). Die Yogasūtras des Patañjali (ca.4.Jh. n.Chr.) gehören zu den sechs Systemen der indischen…

[English Version] I. ReligionsgeschichtlichIn allen rel. Traditionen begegnen Versuche, die Gesch. zu ordnen und sie entweder als einmaligen Prozeß zu deuten oder aber in eine Abfolge von Zyklen einzufügen, verbunden oft mit aitiologischen und/oder eschatologischen Betrachtungen, um gegenwärtige Zustände in ihrer Sinnhaftigkeit zu begründen.W. können zunächst eine elementare Zweiteilung darstellen, indem etwa die Zeit, in der der Mensch lebt, der Zeit gegenübergestellt wird, in der die im Mythos beschriebene Schöpfung (: I.) geschah (z.…