Volume 5, numéro 1, printemps 2024 Religious Tensions & Religious Cohesions

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The Russian World (Russkii Mir) theology is at the heart of the invasion of Ukraine, and is fueling the ongoing war with apocalyptic rhetoric. Specifically, the Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev), Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’ and Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, has declared the “special military operation” in Ukraine to be a Holy War, and sees the Russian Federation as the prophesied one restraining the reign of the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 6–7). The West, and its permissive culture of secularist governments, religious pluralism, reproductive freedom, and acceptance of LGBTQIA+ persons, is seen as literally satanic – that is, as heralding the coming of the Antichrist from the Book of Revelation. This article traces the evolution of this aberrant theology, as well as the geopolitical contexts in which it has evolved. The article concludes with a counternarrative coming from the Orthodox Church Father, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon (☦︎ 202 CE). It is hoped that a “Return to the Fathers” in theological worldview will, in turn, help Russian Orthodoxy to return to sanity, and away from its dangerous apocalyptic rhetoric.

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What is the central philosophy of the Upanishads? Is it theistic, monistic, polytheistic, panpsychistic, or something else? Are the world and God real or unreal? Such questions have been a riddle for ancient sages and modern scholars of the Vedāntic tradition, alike. Interestingly, if any thinker has made this discourse more puzzling, it is none other than Śaṅkarācārya (c. 7th–9th centuries CE); through his famous dictum, Brahma satyam jagat-mithya jivo brahmaiva naparah (“Brahman alone is real, the world is unreal. Jiva is not other than Brahman”), he almost changed the entire Vedāntic paradigm, akin to Nietzsche in Western thought with his “God is Dead” dictum. Now, before any thinker embarks on the Vedāntic path, they must first encounter Śaṅkarācārya’s thesis in one way or another, as only then can one engage with notions including ethics, aesthetics, bhakti, karma, and others. Following the same line of inquiry, this review article investigates Professor K. Satchidananda Murty’s distinctive discourse on Vedānta and his engagement with Śaṅkarācārya’s philosophy, as portrayed in a recent edition of some of his works, titled Vedānta and Bhagavadgītā: The Unpublished Writings of K. Satchidananda Murty, proficiently compiled by Professor Ashok Vohra and Kotta Ramesh.

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The preservation of Ottoman heritage has been a contested topic in Turkey over the last few decades. While many studies have attended to the political and economic interests related to the restoration of Ottoman-era architectural complexes and buildings, this article draws attention to the intersecting aspirations and negotiations over the question of preservation by various actors in the historical Fatih district of Istanbul. The district’s historical importance is traced back to 1463, when the Ottoman ruler Mehmet II (ca. 1432–1481) decided to build a monumental mosque complex after the city’s conquest. The construction of additional monumental mosque complexes, madrasas (colleges), Sufi lodges, and shrines in the later Ottoman period transformed the district into a space reflecting the enduring political and socio-religious presence of Islamic and Ottoman urban traditions. Starting from the latter half of the nineteenth century, Ottoman modernization and early twentieth century Republican secularization significantly transformed the district’s built environment and everyday life. Over the last few decades, multiple agents have been involved in reviving the district’s Ottoman heritage, namely, Sufi orders, Muslim civil society organizations, and current government projects to restore Ottoman-era buildings. Drawing upon historical and ethnographic data collected in the district, the article argues that the meaning and function of Ottoman heritage are not static entities; rather, they are discursively constituted within shifting socio-political and economic contexts. While acknowledging the increasing commodification of tangible heritage in post-colonial Muslim cities, the article sheds light on how both shared and contested forms of belonging to the institutional and intellectual heritage of Islamic tradition, mediated by Ottoman-era architectural complexes and spaces, broaden our understanding of living heritage.

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This article examines and analyses the socio-political implications of the patronage and development of the Bengali guru-shrine of Belur Math, the headquarters of Ramakrishna Mission, by the central government of India. Founded by Swami Vivekananda – regarded as one of the most renowned Hindu cultural leaders of nineteenth century colonial Bengal – Belur Math is a symbol of cultural heritage for Bengali-Hindus. In 2017, Belur Math was the only temple from West Bengal to be selected for religious-tourism development under the Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (PRASAD) scheme, a national project launched by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and helmed by Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India. Under the PRASAD scheme, the math underwent a series of infrastructural developments, which also included accompanying political signage. I use these developments with their accompanying political signage as an entry-point for discussing the politicization of particular devotional sites by the BJP (the ruling party of India since 2014), and consider its various socio-political implications at both the regional and national levels. Using an ethnographic approach, the study asks: 1) What are the political implications of state patronage of a religious site with prominent display of political signage? 2) How do the new developments affect the experiences of everyday visitors at the site? 3) How do the lay devotees interpret the foray of political signage within a religious space? The study addresses these questions through field work observations and interviews with various actors, such as lay devotees and visitors to the shrine and state tourism officers. Through a close analysis of the PRASAD scheme’s implementation at the math and the devotees’ responses to it, I suggest that, although normalised as a government initiative to develop the religious site and promote religious-tourism, the project actually emerges as a well-coordinated political strategy: as the BJP attempts to make in-roads in Bengal’s regional political landscape, this project is meant to appeal to the middle-class Hindu-Bengali lay devotees of the guru-faith organization. Accordingly, this article provides insights into the BJP’s recent trend of capitalizing on Hindu gurus and sacred shrines as a specific and valued Hindu cultural good, and considers the various ways such alliances benefit both the political party and the religious organization.