This chapter critically discusses the essays that compose the volume. Regarding the production and use of plastics, it shows how the volume provides readers with a manual that supports groups moving toward organizing for social changes.
Interdisciplinarity is an intercultural process in which different scientific subcultures interactand complement each other. The theory of evolution has given the biosciences an integrative foundation that combines molecular biology, behavioral research and cultural evolutionary studies. In particular, the theory of symbolic transmission builds bridges to the humanities and cultural sciences. Theological ethics can benefit from this interdisciplinary exchange by incorporating biological findings and at the same time critically reflecting on their methodological limitations. Evolutionary ethics in particular makes it clear that moral norms are not static, but culturally developed and have an evolutionary-dynamic basic character. This approach can be helpful for interculturally oriented theological ethics, which seeks common ethical foundations and solutions across cultural boundaries. In this context, the interdisciplinary dialog between theological ethics and the biosciences can serve as a model for intercultural ethics. For example, by drawing on an empirically grounded “theory of cultural evolution”, this dialogue provides a framework for understanding cultural differences and promoting communication between epistemically different traditions in an increasingly globalized world.
’Έρχομαι as a word denoting the second coming in the New Testament and the telos of its use in the book of Revelation. The purpose of this article is to exegetically determine the meaning and use of ἒρχομαι as a word denoting the second coming, in the revelation-historical tradition. A definition of the meaning of ἒρχομαι is formulated after a word study has been done in a diachronic and synchronic way. In this article it is also established what the telos of the revelation of the second coming is, where ἒρχομαι is used in the book of Revelation. The findings of the research are summed in a definition of the meaning of ἒρχομαι as a word denoting the second coming, and which is formulated as follows: It is the physical coming of Jesus Christ with his second coming, from heaven to earth, during which He will appear publicly in power and glory, to judge and to save the faithful. The telos of the revelation of the second coming by means of ἒρχομαι, is determined as the kerugma that God in Jesus is ὁ ἐρχόμενος, coming to mankind; the manner in which He will come; and that his second coming forms an essential part of God’s counsel. A second purpose for proclaiming the second coming, is to state that it is Jesus Christ himself that is coming and to direct the focus of the believers to him. Thirdly, the second coming is proclaimed to call unbelievers to repentance and to encourage believers to stay faithful. The final telos is determined as encouragement for the believers to remain faithful, to take heart in the promise of everlasting life in God’s presence, to pray for the return of Christ and to believe and obey Scripture, the written word of God.
Contribution: By means of exegesis in the revelation-historical tradition, an original theological definition of meaning of ἒρχομαι as a word, denoting the second coming of Christ, is provided and the telos for the revelation of the second coming, by means of ἒρχομαι in the book of Revelation, is determined.
Practical Theology, Practical religion. The Christian life
This article considers the development of African theological education with the new imperative to support the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the need to engage global processes of development. By employing the strategic focus of curriculum design and content that focuses on African realities, theological education can support this transformative agenda. Expanding access to quality theological education aligns with Agenda 2063’s emphasis on quality education. However, for African theological education to remain relevant and effective, beyond denominational myopia and internal ecclesial concerns, it must gain significant traction in the political, social, and economic spheres of modern-day Africa. A
theology of transformation to prepare the Church as an agent of change can be instructive. To consider this task, this article reflects on integrative curriculum design as a means that educates for the required competencies, including ethical leadership, with an outward focus.
Christianity, Practical religion. The Christian life
In the article the author depicts the process of creating the codification of judicial principles of professional conduct. Firstly, the author describes the beginnings of the “model of a good judge”, followed thereafter by discussion in judicial environment on the need of normative conceptualization of the principles of conduct, which would constitute a separate collection. The proposals of the ethical codifications are presented, together with the two concluding works: The Judicial Set of Principles of Conduct [Zbiór zasad postępowania sędziów] created by the Association of Judges “Iustitia” and The Set of Principles of Professional Conduct for Judges and Candidate Judges [Zbiór zasad etyki zawodowej sędziów i asesorów Sądowych] by the National Council of the Judiciary in Poland.
This essay first treats “pagan envy,” then “Christian envy,” and finally the relationship between the two, for an overall tri-partite structure. Taken in outline, it rehearses the way in which Aristotle’s thought informs the key features of Thomas Aquinas’ account of envy. In so doing, it reveals Thomas’ understanding of the interrelation between natural and supernatural wisdom on a microcosmic level. More than that, this essay tries to illuminate Thomas’ contribution to the Christian intellectual tradition’s suspicion of envy.
This study seeks to combine research from critical race theory, as applied to post-1994 South Africa, with insights from practical theology. It looks into points of agreement between these perspectives, especially the call to critically appraise ideologies that deny or obscure the present-day consequences of racism. On this foundation, the article moves on to consider the recommendations adduced by Leonardo and Porter (2010:147) and Sue (2013:666-669) as to how dialogues around race and racism can be enhanced. The article begins by contextualising its argument, followed by an overview of the guiding principles of CRT, focusing on the way these have been applied to research in South Africa. Thereafter, the precepts of CRT are matched with insights from scholars in theology regarding the continued need to glean more precisely nuanced understandings of how race plays out in South African society. Finally, the article draws from Leonardo and Porter (2010:140-142) and Sue’s (2013:666-669) suggestions.
Christianity, Practical religion. The Christian life
W wyniku przeprowadzonej przez Armię Czerwoną ofensywy zimą 1945 r. w Prusach Wschodnich, setki tysięcy Niemców znalazło się w okrążeniu. Rozpoczęła się wówczas chaotyczna ewakuacja wojska i cywilów, głównie drogą morską. W jej trakcie zginęły tysiące uciekinierów. Dramatyczny los spotkał niemiecką ludność cywilną, która dostała się w ręce czerwonoarmistów. W zajmowanych miastach i wioskach żołnierze radzieccy dopuszczali się indywidualnych i zbiorowych zbrodni na cywilach. Ofiarami gwałtów i morderstw padło wiele kobiet. Wśród ofiar bestialstwa żołnierzy radzieckich były również siostry zakonne ze Zgromadzenia Sióstr św. Katarzyny Dziewicy i Męczennicy. Śmierć niektórych z nich miała znamiona męczeństwa za wiarę.
Ammár b. Yazid is one of the leaders of the early Hashimiyya movement in Khurásán. Having played apart unacceptable to theAbbasids in the formative sta.g.e.s their da’wa in Khurásán, the official Abbasid propaganda later obliterated as much as possible of his memory, minimised his part in the da’wa and presented him as a heretic. Around 111/ 729 a dái (propaganist) named Ammár b. Yazid and nicknamed Khidásh was send Merw to head a new Abbasid da’wa organization in Khurasan. Khidash expounded extremist doctrines and was eventually repudiated by the Abbasid imam, Muhammed b. Ali; He was arrested and executed in 118/736. Khidash had acquired followers of his own, known as the Khidashiyya. Some Heresiograhhers report that Khidash taught the doctrines of the Khurramiyya
The new totalitarian society is a euphemized expression denoting the New World Order, which in itself denotes the American globalization. The underpinning of this mindset is rationality, which is characterristic of Western civilization. Christianity engendered rationality by introducing it through St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, and especially formal logic. Since it is obvious that religion and logic cannot ultimately be harmonized, this combination has proven lethal in many cases throughout history. For instance, the Inquisition, which, contrary to what happened at scholastic universities, severely berated rational thinking in practice. Catholicism helped carry out genocide against the Jews, and Orthodoxy is in a certain manner tied in with Stalinism. The new totalitarian society is anchored in American Protestantism. On the whole, Christian rationalism is a sphere of science, techniques and technologies efficiently employed to promote the West to the status of a society of plenty and the conception of human rights, which turn into their opposite and irrational behavior of the worst kind. An example of such inhumanity is the attack against Yugoslavia/Serbia in 1999. Rezime: Novo totalitarno društvo je eufemiziran izraz za „novi svjetski poredak”, a svodi se na „ameri0ku globalizaciju”. U osnovi svega je racionalnost koja je osnovna karakteristika zapadne civilizacije. Kriš4anstvo je iznjedrilo racionalnost uvo3enjem, preko sv. Tome Akvinskog, Aristotelovih djela i posebno formalne logike. Ali, pošto je o0ito da vjera i racionalnost ne mogu, u krajnjoj liniji, biti harmoni0ni, onda se taj spoj, u mnogim slu0ajevima, pokazao povijesno kobnim. Spomenimo inkviziciju koja je, protivno onom što se doga3alo na skolasti0kim univerzitetima, oštro sankcionirala racionalno mišljenje u praksi. Katoli0anstvo je asistiralo genocidu nad Jevrejima, pravoslavlje je, na izvjestan na0in, vezano za staljinizam. Novo totalitarno društvo je vezano za ameri0ki protestantizam. Sve u svemu, kriš4anska racionalnost koja je u oblasti nauke, tehnike i tehnologi1 # C 8 C, professor emeritus , X ; 8 8 C 8 8 X + /@ ; ; , ; / + ; . 148 E.Vlajki, Bhe new totalitarian society je bila izuzetno efikasna, koja je Zapad dovela do društva obilja i do koncepcije ljudskih prava, zna se prometnuti u svoju suprotnost, u iracionalno ponašanje najgore vrste. Jedan od primjera takve nehumanosti je i napad na Jugoslaviju/Srbiju 1999. The great German philosopher Kant said once that human existence contains essentially two things: billions of stars above man and the morality inside of man. Fifty years later another German philosopher Nietzsche thought that God (thus morality) was dead due to the prevalence of JudeoChristian civilization and democracy. Stalinism, Nazism and today's “free world” democracy causing millions of death each year, prove well the prophetic words of Nietzsche. When God is dead everything evil is possible because those, temporarily the most powerful world actors, substitute themselves to God imposing their egoistic interests as divine and universal ones. In fact, their highly sophisticated existence, far from being divine, appears as a brutal dictatorship, their words justifying their “rational domination” are shameless lies, and resistance to their “divinity” results by innumerable military interventions and useless death. . Origins, History and Appearance of the New Totalitarian Society 1. Religion and “doublespeak” Some elements of rationality like formal logic, responsible for scientific and technological progress, or Utopian thought, are indispensable parts of humanitarian development. But the profit-oriented relationship does not fit with humanitarianism. On the eve of modernism and industrialization, three possible ethical orientations were contained in victorious rationality: catholic, protestant and orthodox social development. It was shown that in the last instance and concerning the most powerful states, Protestant societies gave birth to ruthless capitalism, (England, the US.), catholic societies engendered “social-capitalism” and “Euro-communism” (France, Italy), and orthodox societies opted for communism (“scientific Christianity”, state capitalism, Russia). Once again, this enlarged and reinterpreted Weberian thesis appears as a main tendency in a history of modernism but not as an absolute rule. One has also to stress that the three important elements of rationality: 1) formal logic (leading to progress of science and technology), 2) Utopian humanitarianism, and 3) competition (leading to the market economy), are contained in all of three religious tendencies of Christianity but not in equal “quantities”. Europe will make its integration not only because of geography but also because Catholicism and Orthodoxy are fundamentally (not politically) close to each other. Preserving the essential of the human part of Christianity, both are more sentimental and romantic than Protestantism which is “ ”, . 1, , 2011. 149 rather cool, inhumanly rational and efficient. During the NATO attack against Yugoslavia it was the Catholic and Orthodox countries (especially Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Ukraine, Russia) that in differrent ways opposed intervention. Protestant countries, in particular, the US. and the United Kingdom made the systematic destruction of civilian targets something to be proud of it (e.g. from the daily US-NATO rapport on bombing: “another efficient day”). Historical circumstances and the extremely high efficiency of Protestant countries in doing business, building weapons and installing rational (Weberian type of) bureaucracy, led the US to become the leader of the West, imposing totalitarianism as a main relationship and way of life worldwide. While former totalitarianism was geographically limited (e.g. Nazism, Stalinism), today no one civilization, state or people can avoid the “international community” control. Global market, “free trade and exchange”, international monetary institutions (World Bank and IMF), multinational corporations, United Nations, “Echelon” (global network able to intercept all international electronic communications), news agencies and media, all of these institutions and mechanisms are for all practical purposes under the control of the West. The new world rulers responsible for most of brutalities, have a serious problem. Because they named themselves the “free world” they have to present their totalitarianism as being humanitarian. It is not a simple goal to achieve and it includes several premises: * “Newspeak” insisting on very simplified concepts (e.g. “right-wrong”, “good-bad”) reducing that way mental habits and modes of thoughts. * “Doublethink” meaning “the power of holding two contradictory be liefs in one's mind simultaneously and accepting both of them” (e.g. “humanitarian bombing”). * “Double dealing” corresponding to the activity that aims at making a mess into the enemy's mind and behavior, inciting it to take wrong moves which would serve as a rational for possible “humanitarian attack”. * The “Ignorance is strength” strategy applied to a large public who due to upbringing, education and media, does not know too many things about mechanisms of neo-colonial exploitation, fabricated rationales, covert actions and the like. * The canard, or “Duckspeak”, a word having, in different circum stances different meanings. “ Applied to an opponent, it is abuse; applied to someone you agree with, it is praise” (e.g., during the Gulf War in 1991, 2 Orwell, George, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Penguin Books, p. 241, 1949. 3 Idem, p. 171. 4 Idem, p. 150. 5 Idem, p. 47. 150 E.Vlajki, Bhe new totalitarian society Iraqi missiles were always “murderous” and American ones were “elegant, technically perfect, precise” etc.). * The “State's Secretary of love” (“Ministry of love” in “1984”) able to assert to the people under attack (bombing, sanctions, etc.), that it is loved by its aggressor(s). The “Ministry of defense” (“Ministry of peace in “I984”) which main characteristic is aggressiveness and main activity the waging of wars. It also produces “peacemakers” and “peacekeepers”, human robots assuring the totalitarian domination all around the world. Thanks to these premises introduced on the world-wide level by the New Totalitarian Society, “traditional” moral, history, words and institutions completely lost (changed) their sense. Permanent wars (e.g., against Iraq and Yugoslavia) with sanctions and military occupation have become the “necessary road to peace”, lies have become a truth, killings of civilians and destruction of countries have become a “love” and humanitarianism and starvation of entire peoples have become “collateral damages” of the inevitable “economic adjustments” imposed by international monetary institutions to the poor. The Kosovo conflict illustrates perfectly the given manipulations (“doublespeak”, “double dealing”, etc.,) performed by the leader of the New Totalitarian Society, in order to justify the further destruction of one sovereign country: * In 1998, the US. special envoy Ambassador Gelbard branded in Belgrade the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) as a terrorist group (“I know terrorist when 1 see one and these men are terrorists”, he said). a) The US encouraged Serbia to launch attack against the KLA. b) The US later took the Serb attack against the KLA as a pretext for the war waged against Belgrade. * Concerning the US KLA relationship: a) Formally, Washington was against the independent Kosovo (the KLA's main objective). b) The US actively supported KLA in its guerrilla against Serbia. * In regard to the deal maid between Washington and Belgrade over the withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo in October 1998. a) The US promised the monitoring of KLA activities by the OSCA. b) The US prevent the OSCA monitors to enter Kosovo for a month permitting KLA's terrorist activities. 6 Idem, p. 172. 7 Idem, p.172; Like in “1984”, In the U.S. there is no “Ministry of war”. Als
The value of values: a christian-philosophical reflection on the nature and directional power of values
To counteract the crisis of direction in contemporary culture, added values to organisations, institutions or businesses are very popular nowadays. What exactly is meant by the concept “value”, however, is usually taken for granted. Even when an explanation is provided, it is usually done in very vague terms. For philosophically-minded people, this situation is unsatisfactory and problematic. Therefore the aim of this article is, from a christian-philosophical point of view, to arrive at more clarity on the question of what precisely the nature, status and directional power of values are. In a previous contribution in this journal, on the value system of the North-West University (NWU), this problem could not be solved satisfactorily, since it mainly focused on practical rather than theoretical aspects.
For a better appreciation of the value of reformational viewpoints on values, the investigation begins with a short review of the western history of philosophy. It is only against the backdrop of this historical review that the contribution of reformational thinkers can be fully understood. It then moves to a brief description of D.H. Th. Vollenhoven’s philosophy in order to determine the place of values in one’s view of reality as a whole. The third section deals with H.G. Stoker’s view on values, which clarifies the nature and power of values. An investigation of the viewpoints of J.P.A. Mekkes, J. Olthuis, S. Fowler, J.J. Venter and D.F.M. Strauss provides further clarification enable a formulation of some statements about values which could clarify the current confusion about values, that of the NWU included. Since general values are not capable of providing clear normative direction in multi-religious and multi-cultural institutions, the last section reflects on an alternative way to solve the problems of the NWU as well as other institutions and organisations which have to accommodate different viewpoints. A brief review concludes the study.
This is a review of Sita Sings the Blues (2008). This film review is available in Journal of Religion & Film: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol13/iss2/16 Sita Sings the Blues resists a quick summary, but it has already received a number of standard reviews and has its own website. In this review, therefore, I wish to concentrate on some of the religious and social issues raised by the film. The Hindu epic, The Ramayana, has been gaining traction in the West over the last several decades. Nothing displays this so vividly as the rising popularity of this very personal film, which credits the story with aiding the writer and director through the pain of separation and divorce. This is particularly interesting since the director, Nina Paley, is Jewish. Through the use of diverse and highly engaging animation techniques, she tells a very pared-down version of The Ramayana, intersecting it with the story of the loss of her own marriage. She calls it “The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told,” parodying in good humor the famous designation of the Bible. Conservative, traditionalist Hindus have not taken kindly to Paley’s homage, however. A petition posted on the internet reads, “We demand [a] complete ban on the movie and [the] initiation of legal action against all those who have been involved in [the] production and marketing of this derogatory act against the entire Hindu community of the world.” And Paley has responded by saying “The far right—they say that they're Hindus but I think it's not right to call them Hindus. They think nonviolence is bullshit,” to criticisms that have threatened 1 Dodd: Sita Sings the Blues Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2009 physical retaliation. But as all Jews are not Abraham Heschel or Noam Chomsky, so all Hindus are not Mohandas Gandhi or Vandana Shiva. This controversy therefore raises the question of who has the right to interpret and who has the right interpretation of sacred texts. We, in the West, are exposed regularly to the issue in debates over the Tanakh, the Christian Bible, and, to a lesser degree, the Qur’an, but many who know Hinduism mainly through Gandhi are often surprised to learn that it has its own fundamentalist and nationalist groups who claim sole hermeneutic custody over the texts of their traditions. The Ramayana is very clear about how it expects to be read Rama is the main character, an incarnation of the god Vishnu, the ideal man, who restores order to the universe and righteousness to the social world. Therefore we are to honor him in all our actions and thoughts. Devotion to him is pictured for us, for example, by Lakshmana, Rama’s ever-present, devoted brother and servant, who considers Rama to be his “second self,” by Bharata, who places Rama’s sandals on the throne during Rama’s exile and serves them, instead of ruling directly in Rama’s stead; by Guha who protects Rama and Sita at the beginning of their exile and revisits the places they stayed like some Christians do the stations of the cross; by Jatayu, who lays down his life trying to stop the abduction of Sita; by Hanuman, a warrior prince under the exiled monkey king, Sugriva, who serves Rama faithfully in war and in peace and who singlehandedly finds Sita after her abduction; by Vibhishana, the 2 Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 13 [2009], Iss. 2, Art. 16 https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol13/iss2/16 brother of Sita’s kidnapper, Ravana, who quarrels with Ravana about the wisdom of the abduction and eventually joins Rama’s just cause against his own family. But it is primarily Sita who mirrors devotion to Rama for us. Her purity and fidelity to him are legendary; she accepts whatever circumstances come her way with a certain equanimity her mind and heart always fixed on Rama. Now along comes Nina Paley, setting Sita up as the main character, removing the host of devotee surrogates, and she dramatizes there and then a number of the problems that Western (and Westernized) readers have with the sacred story, especially Rama’s treatment of Sita. When Rama and his forces liberate the utterly pure Sita from captivity, Rama declares in Sita’s presence before everyone: “No fond affection for my wife Inspired me in the hour of strife. I battled to avenge the cause Of honour and insulted laws. My love is fled, for on thy fame Lies the dark blot of sin and shame; And thou art hateful as the light That flashes on the injured sight. The world is all before thee: flee: Go where thou wilt, but not with me” (6.117). Sita throws herself on a funeral pyre, but is declared by the god of fire, Agni, to be free of any impurity whatsoever. And then, as the story is usually told, she is accepted back by Rama only to be rejected again, when Sita’s disputed reputation interferes with Rama’s ability to rule. Sita is banished from the kingdom and bears 3 Dodd: Sita Sings the Blues Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2009 Rama’s twin sons in exile; they grow up learning to praise their father by memorizing and performing The Ramayana taught to them by the sage, Valmiki. When his sons are discovered by Rama, Sita proves her absolute fidelity in deed and thought again to Rama and all onlookers by calling upon the mother earth, who opens up and takes Sita back into herself, whence she came. Rama seems heartless and cruel, from this perspective. And it is this vantage point that Paley emphasizes. Perhaps she is most wickedly funny when she has Rama’s two sons sing his praises thus: “Sing his love, sing his praise, Rama set his wife ablaze. Got her home, kicked her out, to allay his people’s doubt. Rama’s wise, Rama’s just, Rama does what Rama must. Duty first, Sita last, Rama’s reign is unsurpassed.” But there is much more bubbling below the surface of the story that can bother Western readers as well. The trial by fire can be used to justify the horrible dowry deaths, especially bride burning, on the Indian subcontinent, for example. The blaming of Sita for impurity when she is violently abducted sounds very much like the blaming of rape victims for their own brutalization. These, and many other issues, have to be addressed, no matter how much one is equally concerned with sensitivity to other cultures and alert to the history of Western imperialism. But this also brings up an important point. We must be alert to the fact that Sita is now being understood from the modern Occidental preoccupation with the individual. This 4 Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 13 [2009], Iss. 2, Art. 16 https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol13/iss2/16 reading is strongly at odds with ancient communal traditions where their epic heroes embody social values and act on behalf of the community. Paley has rendered to us a very great service, and a very fine film. We can now add Paley’s rendition of The Ramayana to the many other retellings and compare and evaluate it in their own context. Among the additional issues one may want to raise after watching the movie are the following: What does it mean for Rama (and Sita) to be incarnate? This is very close to traditional Christian debates about the nature of Jesus. How far are we going to press finite limitations on divine incarnations? Is Rama really fully human, even fallible, or is he simply a divine agent who voluntarily curbs his infinite power to conform to human finitude, in which case, he may only “seem” human?9 So does Rama err in his treatment of Sita or is he demonstrating a wisdom that is ultimately beyond human abilities to comprehend? A related concern deals with the nature and importance of duty, a concept which is terribly atrophied and underplayed in the West. Duty is used as the justification for Rama treating Sita as he does. Turning the perspective a little, do we also tend to downplay fidelity and devotion as forms of weakness in this culture? This is something Paley does address, because it concerns Sita directly. Nina is empowered, in the movie, not just by “moving on” from her husband abandoning her, but also by embracing the pain creatively. Yet this is not Sita’s way. Sita creates her identity in such a way that she is defined by her devotion to 5 Dodd: Sita Sings the Blues Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2009 Rama. And this is accepted as another avenue to empowerment in the film. The movie starts with the goddess Lakshmi (who will incarnate herself in Sita) massaging the feet of Vishnu. After Sita re-enters Mother Earth, Rama’s eye tears up and he seems to have a conversion. At the end, the celestial image is of Vishnu massaging the feet of Lakshmi, who looks into the camera and winks to us. Finally, we can discuss Paley’s dependence on extreme summarization. By paring the text down so drastically, she short-circuits a number of traditional strategies for reading it, thus reducing it to an archetypal “break-up” story. To what degree is this fair? On the other hand, how resistant will we want to be about abridgements, since the story is one of the longest epics in human history and has so many variations? Paley has given those of us who teach religion an unusual opportunity to address issues like these, and the film's rising popularity gives us a larger forum than usual to be heard. 1 Nina Paley, for reasons that will become clear when one reads her website and when one hears how she uses some eleven songs sung by Annette Hanshaw from 1927-29 in the film, has placed Sita Sings the Blues on the internet to be streamed or downloaded for free. See http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/ 2 Valmiki’s very famous rendition is available on the internet in a nineteenth-century translation by Ralph Griffith at the sacred texts site: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/index.htm 3 http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/sitasingstheblues/ 4 http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/news/2008/04/sita?currentPage=all; http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/faq.html 6 Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 13 [2009], Iss. 2, Art. 16 https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol13/iss2/16 5 Tec