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[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Christianity – III. The Religions of India – IV. Buddhism I. Religious Studies Meditation is a general term for different, variously contextualized methods of training consciousness that are found in various religions. The term itself originated in the Platonic/Neoplatonic Christian tradition (Platonism, Neoplatonism), where it means “intensively focused thought.” The works of Hugh and Richard of St. Victor as well as Bonaventura and J. de Gerson treat meditation as a stage in the progress of the spiritual life: lectio – meditatio – ( o…

[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. Missiology I. History of Religion 1. The Buddha and his Teaching. Although the biographical dates of the historical Buddha are uncertain, scholars generally put them at 563–483 bce. The Buddha understood his own teaching as a path to redemption, i.e., to liberation from the wretched cycle of rebirths. This teaching (Dharma) is often expressed in a medical…

[German Version] (Sep 17, 1864, Colombo as Don David Hevāvitharana [also: Hewavitarne] – Apr 29, 1933, Benares as Siri Devamitta Dharmapāla) was a leading personality in the Buddhist reform movement and the Singhalese renewal movement (Buddhism: I, 2.e,f). Dharmapāla, who attended Christian schools, already established close ties with important Buddhist reformers during this peri…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies 1. General Suffering is a concept that needs to be approached constructively in comparative religious study as it takes fundamental negative human experiences to a comparative level. On this interpretive level, suffering is understood as one of the fundamental experiences of human life. What people experience as suffering depends on their particular interpretation of the world and hence on their religious system for interpreting the world. The point at which religi…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Christian Theology – IV. Buddhism I. Religious Studies Verbalizing the internal light (Symbols/Symbol theory) of the mysteries and mysticism, enlightenment denotes salvific knowledge that comes through sudden ineffable existential experience. Interreligious contacts (reception of ancient conceptions of enlightenment in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; modern encount…

[German Version] (Sanskrit: euphemistic trans. “small vehicle”; originally used pejoratively by the adherents of Mahāyāna in the sense of “lesser vehicle”) designates a number of sometimes quite disparate early Buddhist orientations (Buddhism: I, 6). Bareau (1964) proposed adopting the objectively more correct designation “Early Buddhism/Old Buddhism.” The path to salvation (Redemption/Soteriology: IX) is often considered the unifying element, which is sometimes qualified as selfish: The arhat who strives only for personal salvation is supposed to be the main…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Christianity – III. Buddhism I. Religious Studies The term compassion bears Christian connotations: compassion (cf. Lat. compassio; Gk συμπάϑεια/ sympátheia) refers to the capacity or ability to share concretely in the suffering of others, to sympathize and to draw co…

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[German Version] comprises the modern continental countries Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Singapore, together with the island states of Indonesia, Brunei, East Timor, and the Philippines. The territory of Malaysia comprises both continental and insular regions (see the map at Asia). In the year 2000, the population was about 522 million; 27.2% were Buddhists, 2% Hindus, 26.8% Muslims, 21.4% Christians (14.7% Catholics), and 22.6% other. South-East Asia is extraordinarily varied – ethnically, linguistically, culturally, and religiously. The linguistic situation today on the continent is roughly as follows: in Myanmar the dominant language is Burmese, a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family; Thai, the official language of Thailand, and Laotian belong to the same family; (Standard) Khmer is the official language of Cambodia, belonging to the Mon-Khmer family of Austro-Asiatic languages; Vietnamese should also be assigned to t…

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[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Systematic Theology …

[German Version] I. Terminology All the major concepts in soteriology have biblical roots. Of central importance today is the notion of reconciliation (II), which bridges the theological and secular realms. The original Greek word καταλλαγή/ katallagḗ involves the notion of exchange, which was early taken to imply that Christ takes the place of the sinner before God, so realizing atonement (at-one-ment) and making expiation. Associated ideas include substitution and representation, which conceive Christ as standing in for the sinner before God. Particular theologies derive from…

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[German Version] I. Religio-Cultural Journals – II. Journals of Religious Studies – III. Christianity – IV. Judaism – V. Islam I. Religio-Cultural Journals During the second half of the 19th century, the publication of German-language journals experienced a tremendous upsurge. While the year 1890 saw the publication of 3,203 individual titles, the number had grown to 5,231 by the year 1900 and to 6,689 by 1914. Journals became the preferred medium in academia and culture. In the field of theology, the proportion …

[German Version] I. Terminology The sociology of religion studies religion’s social aspects and manifestations, clearly including religious institutions, organizations, and social groups. It also studies more situational forms, less clearly defined, such as gatherings, ceremonies, and collective rituals (e.g. processions [Rite and ritual]). In an extended sense, characteristic of the German-language tradition since M. Weber, religious sociology deals with all s…