Whether Vedic people were indigenous habitants or emigrants is a hotly debated current issue. Both sides involved in the debate have been vehemently using the available evidences, with twists – caused at times due to sheer neglect and at times even fraudulently - to bring home their point of view, somehow. Nevertheless, what is the truth? Were there ever any migrations of so-called PIE language speakers, located at some hypothetical and yet uncertain homeland, to spread the language and culture? Are migrations necessary from any hypothetical homeland to result into a net of the languages? What was the geography of Rig Veda? Was the Avesta contemporaneous to the Rig Veda? Did any relation ever exist between the Vedic people and the Indus-Ghaggar civilisation? Is there any relationship between the Vedic religion and the modern Hindu religion? While answering to these vital questions, this book postulates a theory on the issue of the so-called IE languages and origins of the Vedic as well as the Zoroastrian religions. It diligently explains how the religious and cultural ethos of the Indus-Ghaggar Civilisation has flowed to us uninterrupted and exposes the schemes of the Vedicist scholars, who are attempting to claim its authorship!

This bibliography is the culmination of four years' work by a team of noted scholars; its annotated entries are organised by religious tradition and cover each tradition's central concepts, offering a judicious selection of primary and secondary works as well as recommendations of cross-cultural topics to be explored. Specialists in the history and literature of religions and comparative religion will find this bibliography a valuable research tool.

How should we study religion? Must we be religious ourselves to truly understand it? Do we study religion to advance our knowledge, or should the study of religions help to reintroduce the sacred into our increasingly secularized world? Juraj Franek argues that the study of religion has long been split into two competing paradigms: reductive (naturalist) and non-reductive (protectionist). While the naturalistic approach seems to run the risk of explaining religious phenomena away, the protectionist approach appears to risk falling short of the methodological standards of modern science. Franek uses primary source material from Greek and Latin sources to show that both competing paradigms are traceable to Presocratic philosophy and early Christian literature. He presents the idea that naturalists are distant heirs, not only of the French Enlightenment, but also of the Ionian one. Likewise, he argues that protectionists owe much of their arguments and strategies, not only to Luther and the Reformation, but to the earliest Christian literature. This book analyses the conflict between reductive and non-reductive approach in the modern study of religions, and positions the Cognitive Science of Religion against a background of previous theories - ancient and modern - to demonstrate its importance for the revindication of the naturalist paradigm.

Today, most intellectuals agree that (a) Christianity has profoundly influenced western culture; (b) members from different cultures experience many aspects of the world differently; (c) the empirical and theoretical study of both culture and religion emerged within the West. The present study argues that these truisms have implications for the conceptualization of religion and culture. More specifically, the thesis is that non-western cultures and religions differ from the descriptions prevalent in the West, and it is also explained why this has been the case. The author proposes novel analyses of religion, the Roman 'religio', the construction of 'religions' in India, and the nature of cultural differences. Religion is important to the West because the constitution and the identity of western culture is tied to the dynamic of Christianity as a religion.

"This work is a serious anthropological study of Australian Aboriginal religion. It is designed to be read by adults, and is primarily for use in universities and/or similar institutions. It is not, therefore, for use in schools. Where Australian Agorigines are concerned, and in areas where traditional Aboriginal religion is still significant, this book should be used only after consultation with local male religious leaders. This restriction is important. It is imposed because the concept of what is secret, or may not be revealed to the uninitiated in Aboriginal religious belief and action, varies considerably throughout the Australian continent; And because the varying views of Aborigines in this respect must on all occasions be observed. January 30th 1973 Ronald M. Berndt" --

The Bhagavad-Gita is probably the most popular - and certainly the most frequently quoted and widely studied - work of the Hindu scriptures. This book investigates the relationship between the various interpretations of the Bhagavad-Gita and the Hindu tradition. Taking into account a range of influential Indian and western thinkers to illustrate trends in writing about the Bhagavad-Gita including Western academic; Indian activist; Christian theological; Hindu universalist; perennialist mystical and contemporary experiental accounts. Examining the ideas of such influential figures as F Max Muller, M K Ghandi, Bede Griffiths, Swami Vivekananda, Aldous Huxley and Swami Bhakivedanta, this book demonstrates the inextricable link between different interpretations of the Bhagavad-Gita and images of the Hindu tradition. This accessible book aptly demonstrates the relevance of the Bhagavad-Gita for an understanding of Hinduism as a modern phenomenon.