The Brahman as the Head of a Household

Author(s):  
Nathan McGovern

This chapter, complementing the previous one, examines the articulation of Brahman identity that understood the Brahman to be a non-celibate householder, namely, that found in the Dharma Sūtras. It shows that the Dharma Sūtras were not simply intra-Brahmanical texts, but rather polemical texts articulating a particular, non-celibate vision of Brahmanical identity. They did so first by using for the first time a fully explicit statement of the varṇa system to divorce brahmacarya (celibacy) from Brahmanhood and restrict it to their own group. Then, they used the āśrama system to taxonomize all forms of religious practice in their day, so as to reject all those that did not produce children.

Author(s):  
Joseph Arthur Mann

The passage of the Toleration Act meant religious freedom for non-Anglican Protestants but signaled a fundamental shift in the position of the Church of England in English society. Prior, the Church of England benefited from a government-backed monopoly on legal religious practice in England. The loss of these legal inducements meant that the Church of England had to compete equally, for the first time, in a marketplace of religious ideas. Chapter four exposes how the Church of England responded to this change with pro-music pamphlets advertising the joyful nature of the Anglican service in contrast to the austere practices of other Protestant denominations. It argues that while nonconformists wrote massive treatises arguing fine theological points about music in divine worship, Anglicans produced pamphlets that were addressed to the average reader in terms they could understand. It also connects these pro-music pamphlets to other accessible works written by Anglican propagandists that promote the Church of England in this new marketplace of ideas. Overall, the chapter reveals the previously-unknown propaganda functions of these Anglican music pamphlets and reveals that they were part of a larger, equally unknown, pro-Anglican propaganda campaign that directly responded to the results of the Toleration Act.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sipco Vellenga

In 2011, the Dutch House of Representatives voted for the first time in its history for banning the practice of unstunned ritual slaughter in accordance to Jewish and Islamic rites. How should this remarkable vote be understood? In order to answer this question, a critical discourse analysis has been carried out. Three discourses are discerned in the debate: ‘unstunned ritual slaughter as an outdated practice,’ ‘ritual slaughter as a form of ritual torture’ and ‘unstunned ritual slaughter as a legitimate religious practice.’ The growing parliamentary support for the first two mentioned discourses is related to recent changes in the Dutch political landscape. In a wider context, it is related to a shift in the national self-conception of the Netherlands and, linked to that, to a change in the perceived position of traditional religious minorities within Dutch society in the aftermath of 9/11 and the ‘Fortuyn revolt.’


2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (9) ◽  
pp. 331-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Obomanu ◽  
H. G. Kennedy

The new Mental Health Act for England and Wales is likely to extend the powers of mental health review tribunals (MHRTs) by giving tribunals the power to approve all compulsory treatment (Department of Health, 1999a, b). The medical member may be dropped entirely from the tribunal's proceedings (Richardson & Machin, 2000). In Ireland, a proposed new Mental Health Act will introduce MHRTs for the first time (Calvert, 2000). The 1983 Mental Health Act contains no explicit statement of underlying principles, although some were introduced in the revised Code of Practice. The Expert Committee (Department of Health, 1999b) suggested that the new Act should specify broad principles where these would help in statutory interpretation, particularly because a range of practitioners working in different settings will be required to understand and implement its provisions. The Green Paper initially suggested that the proper place for setting out principles should be a Code of Practice, but ended by inviting comments on the principles proposed by the Expert Committee, and on whether inclusion of principles would aid interpretation of the new Act.


Author(s):  
Siti Mahmudah

Islam and local tradition had already coexisted peacefully since Islam was revealed by Allah for the first time through the Gabriel Angel to the Prophet Muhammad in Mecca on 610 M. According to Mohammed A. Muqtedar Khan, there were traditions and ethics of Islam, based on the origin of the the sharia misunderstood by the most Muslims until now. Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) with his theory of the Pribumisasi Islam and Khalil Abdul Karim with his theory about the early existence of the Islam and sharia has been revealed among the pre-Islamic Arab tradition as the blueprint for Islam and the sharia in this era. Both of these theories are those of the continuation of Islam for all times and places.  For the first time, Islam and the sharia gave high appreciation and respect to the Arab tradition and had even enshrined Arab traditions that are considered good and maslahat for humanitarian life remains entrenched to the teachings of Islam and enshrined in the Qur'an. Both of these theories can be used as the basis for rejecting the discovery of Timothy Daniel about "Islamic Spectrum in Java" (2009) which holds that the religious practice of Java is the Kejawen belief (a syncretic), because the teachings of Islam has mixed with local traditions. Therefore, I assert that the religious practice of Java is very diverse and cannot be called as a Kejawen belief (a syncretic). The practice of the Kejawen belief in religious practice in Java is a form of Islam whichis a contextual learning and will continue its process on the perfection of Islam to continue to honor the tradition of the Javanese community that has been practiced by their ancestors and has been successively crystallized and is very difficult to eliminate. Some examples are: bathing with flower tradition in the wedding event, laying flowers at the entrance of the house every Friday night, and riyungan. The reason is that the Muslim community is still able to practice the good and maslahat tradition like in the first era ofIslam in Mecca and Madina.


Author(s):  
Aleksei V. Sarabyev

The presenting appeal to the poetic heritage of the medieval mystic poet, emir, sheikh al- Makzoun al-Sinjari (c. 1188–1240) is undertaken for the first time in Russian oriental studies. The proposed translation from the Arabic fragment of his poetic work “Divan” is supplied with an introductory article giving an idea of the degree of study in world science of the literary and theological work of this Nusayri figure. Based on the analysis of the specific terms, a conclusion is made about the deep Sufi roots of the poetry of Makzoun. In the poem, the central concept is loving intimacy to God - a connection or coupling (wasl, wisal) with a clear erotic connotation. This meaning approach it to the biblical book “Song of Songs”, where the deep love relationship of the human soul and God is also clothed in an erotic form rich in metaphors. Makzoun relied in his poetry on samples of Arabic love lyrics transferring them to the realm of God-seeking. As a representative of Sufism, Makzoun uses words in special meanings, for example, the designation of the “parts” of the heart or soul – qalb, fu’ad. Some concepts (sabr, hizn, wajd, qabd, bast), in addition to the basic meanings, can denote “stations” (makamat) on the spiritual path of a Sufi. The religious meaning of the love qasida is revealed for one practicing in a mystical Muslim way, acquiring a special religious content. Fragments from Makzoun 's “Divan” may have been performed at Sufi musical festive gatherings or may have been part of a Nusayri religious practice.


Author(s):  
J. Chakraborty ◽  
A. P. Sinha Hikim ◽  
J. S. Jhunjhunwala

Although the presence of annulate lamellae was noted in many cell types, including the rat spermatogenic cells, this structure was never reported in the Sertoli cells of any rodent species. The present report is based on a part of our project on the effect of torsion of the spermatic cord to the contralateral testis. This paper describes for the first time, the fine structural details of the annulate lamellae in the Sertoli cells of damaged testis from guinea pigs.One side of the spermatic cord of each of six Hartly strain adult guinea pigs was surgically twisted (540°) under pentobarbital anesthesia (1). Four months after induction of torsion, animals were sacrificed, testes were excised and processed for the light and electron microscopic investigations. In the damaged testis, the majority of seminiferous tubule contained a layer of Sertoli cells with occasional spermatogonia (Fig. 1). Nuclei of these Sertoli cells were highly pleomorphic and contained small chromatinic clumps adjacent to the inner aspect of the nuclear envelope (Fig. 2).


Author(s):  
M. Rühle ◽  
J. Mayer ◽  
J.C.H. Spence ◽  
J. Bihr ◽  
W. Probst ◽  
...  

A new Zeiss TEM with an imaging Omega filter is a fully digitized, side-entry, 120 kV TEM/STEM instrument for materials science. The machine possesses an Omega magnetic imaging energy filter (see Fig. 1) placed between the third and fourth projector lens. Lanio designed the filter and a prototype was built at the Fritz-Haber-Institut in Berlin, Germany. The imaging magnetic filter allows energy-filtered images or diffraction patterns to be recorded without scanning using efficient area detection. The energy dispersion at the exit slit (Fig. 1) results in ∼ 1.5 μm/eV which allows imaging with energy windows of ≤ 10 eV. The smallest probe size of the microscope is 1.6 nm and the Koehler illumination system is used for the first time in a TEM. Serial recording of EELS spectra with a resolution < 1 eV is possible. The digital control allows X,Y,Z coordinates and tilt settings to be stored and later recalled.


Author(s):  
Z.L. Wang ◽  
J. Bentley ◽  
R.E. Clausing ◽  
L. Heatherly ◽  
L.L. Horton

Microstructural studies by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of diamond films grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) usually involve tedious specimen preparation. This process has been avoided with a technique that is described in this paper. For the first time, thick as-grown diamond films have been examined directly in a conventional TEM without thinning. With this technique, the important microstructures near the growth surface have been characterized. An as-grown diamond film was fractured on a plane containing the growth direction. It took about 5 min to prepare a sample. For TEM examination, the film was tilted about 30-45° (see Fig. 1). Microstructures of the diamond grains on the top edge of the growth face can be characterized directly by transmitted electron bright-field (BF) and dark-field (DF) images and diffraction patterns.


Author(s):  
Shou-kong Fan

Transmission and analytical electron microscopic studies of scale microstructures and microscopic marker experiments have been carried out in order to determine the transport mechanism in the oxidation of Ni-Al alloy. According to the classical theory, the oxidation of nickel takes place by transport of Ni cations across the scale forming new oxide at the scale/gas interface. Any markers deposited on the Ni surface are expected to remain at the scale/metal interface after oxidation. This investigation using TEM transverse section techniques and deposited microscopic markers shows a different result,which indicates that a considerable amount of oxygen was transported inward. This is the first time that such fine-scale markers have been coupled with high resolution characterization instruments such as TEM/STEM to provide detailed information about evolution of oxide scale microstructure.


Author(s):  
Yimei Zhu ◽  
J. Tafto

The electron holes confined to the CuO2-plane are the charge carriers in high-temperature superconductors, and thus, the distribution of charge plays a key role in determining their superconducting properties. While it has been known for a long time that in principle, electron diffraction at low angles is very sensitive to charge transfer, we, for the first time, show that under a proper TEM imaging condition, it is possible to directly image charge in crystals with a large unit cell. We apply this new way of studying charge distribution to the technologically important Bi2Sr2Ca1Cu2O8+δ superconductors.Charged particles interact with the electrostatic potential, and thus, for small scattering angles, the incident particle sees a nuclei that is screened by the electron cloud. Hence, the scattering amplitude mainly is determined by the net charge of the ion. Comparing with the high Z neutral Bi atom, we note that the scattering amplitude of the hole or an electron is larger at small scattering angles. This is in stark contrast to the displacements which contribute negligibly to the electron diffraction pattern at small angles because of the short g-vectors.


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