Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.
The Importance of Religion: Meaning and Action in our Strange World . Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 249 pp. isbn 9781405189729 (pbk.) Gavin Flood is an Oxford Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion who has written several well-received books on subjects such as Tantric traditions, asceticism, and the theory of religion. The present book is attractively bound, with a large question mark on the cover, no doubt meant to illustrate the central thesis of the book, that the search for meaning and the encounter with the unknown lie at the core of religious experience. It must be admitted in advance that in the course of reading the book, the margins of my own copy were also filled with question marks. The book consists of nine chapters that are well organized into three parts of approximately the same size. These three parts correspond to the three constituents of religion, according to Flood, namely, 1) action, that is, embodied ritual practices and moral action; 2) speech, referring to speech acts and the dimension of semantic meaning; and 3) world, which is the visible and invisible realities that are shown forth in the religious encounter. Flood thus argues that the invisible world
Numen – Brill
Published: Jun 8, 2015
Read and print from thousands of top scholarly journals.
Already have an account? Log in
Bookmark this article. You can see your Bookmarks on your DeepDyve Library.
To save an article, log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.
Copy and paste the desired citation format or use the link below to download a file formatted for EndNote
Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
All DeepDyve websites use cookies to improve your online experience. They were placed on your computer when you launched this website. You can change your cookie settings through your browser.