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Document Details :

Title: Transcendence in Hinduism as a Cultural Phenomenon and as a Spiritual Experience
Author(s): MINNEMA, Lourens
Journal: Studies in Interreligious Dialogue
Volume: 22    Issue: 1   Date: 2012   
Pages: 87-98
DOI: 10.2143/SID.22.1.2174058

Abstract :
This article addresses the broader question of the degree of similarity between monotheistic religions such as Judaism, and Indian religions such as Hinduism. More specifically, it discusses how ‘transcendence’ is understood in the so-called Axial Age and in Hinduism in particular. The Axial Age was a period of cultural revolution consisting of the emergence, conceptualization, and institutionalization of a basic tension between the mundane world and the transcendent world. Ancient India was among those cultures that were transformed by this cultural revolution, and Hinduism testifies to several ways in which the tension was conceptualized. It also offers a variety of religious approaches to its resolution. These conceptions and approaches are different from their Western counterparts. This will be demonstrated by focussing on the conceptions of transcendence and immanence in the Mahabharata epic, including the Bhagavadgita’s view of human nature.

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