The Jewish faith is compiled in the\u00a0Hebrew Bible\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0Old Testament<\/em>.\u00a0Their places of worship\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0called\u00a0\u00a0Synagogue<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0were destroyed in many European countries, Palestine and other places. Many have now been rebuilt by Israel. Jews also faced extreme persecution \u2014 Holocaust committed by Hitler in Germany which was an extreme form of hatred for and persecution of Jews. Apart from the millions of European Jews killed, some eminent people could escape to other countries. Albert Einstein the well known scientist, managed to go to Princeton University in USA.<\/p>\n The Christians have magnificent churches all over the world \u2014 Europe, America, Australia, India and elsewhere where sermons on their holy book Bible and religion are regularly given mainly on Sundays. One of the beautiful religious places is the Vatican City home of the Roman Catholic Church and is built in an area of only 109 acres next to Rome and has a population of 800 people. It has magnificent, unforgettable paintings on the walls and ceilings of churches.<\/p>\n The Pope being the head of Catholic Church\u00a0draws millions of people to its faith. At present Pope Francis is their head; he meets many political personalities including the present Prime Minister of India \u2014 Mr Narendra Modi. A well known educational institution in Delhi is\u00a0St. Stephen College \u00a0 <\/em>which\u00a0<\/em>has a small Christian chapel in its premises allowing students to pray there.<\/p>\n Buddhism was started by\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Siddharth Gautam who left his princely life about 2500 years ago and is now known as Lord Buddha. It spread to many parts of the world including Tibet, Bhutan, Japan, China, Thailand, Sri Lanka etc apart from its place of\u00a0origin near Bihar in India. Buddhism teaches that there is suffering in life caused by people\u2019s attachment to desires but this can be eliminated by means of some steps called the\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Eightfold Way.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>The faith has many memorable places of worship called\u00a0Stupa<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0Pagoda with\u00a0<\/em>statues of Lord Buddha inviting people in several\u00a0 regions of the world to follow his teachings. One small beautiful Pagoda is named\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Peace Pagoda\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0on a hilltop in Darjeeling (north India) that was built by Japan. Dalai Lama is the Spiritual head of Buddhism and lives in India after Tibet was colonised by China. Gyalva Rinpoche (born 1935) is the 14th Dalai Lama and has been awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for promoting peace and harmony.<\/p>\n Pagodas were built in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after these cities were bombed by USA at the end of WW II, as symbols of peace and remembrance of tens of thousands of people killed in these bombings. One Pagoda was started in 1947 in Kumamoto by Buddhist monks by simple hand tools and was completed only in 1954.<\/p>\n Islam, propagating the Muslim Faith following the tenets of Muhammad started from Saudi Arabia and Mid eastern countries in 610 AD and gradually spread to many regions of the world \u2014 India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. Followers of Islam are called Moslems with Indonesia having the largest number and India having the second largest number. The number of Moslems in the world is second largest. Beautiful and special\u00a0places of worship \u2014\u00a0Masjid<\/em>, have been built over the last few centuries in these countries and elsewhere. Their holy book is the Quran originally written in Arabic. There are two main sects of Islam \u2014Shia<\/em>,\u00a0 Sunni;<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 sometimes there are violent conflicts between them. India, Pakistan are largely Sunni countries, but Iran is mainly Shia. Some countries use\u00a0 \u00a0Sharia Law\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>based on Islamic scriptures to decide family disputes.<\/p>\n A spiritual leader called\u00a0\u00a0Baha\u2019u\u2019llah promoted a peace loving faith known as Baha\u2019i Faith in Iran in the 19th century . However the dominant Moslems didn\u2019t allow this leader to propagate his views that led him to leave the country. Several followers followed suit and migrated to different regions including India. They have built a few Baha\u2019i temples in Delhi especially the majestic Lotus shaped temple that propagates unity of all faiths. There are also some Baha\u2019i people in USA, Canada and Africa. Its religious book is called\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kitab I Aqdas.<\/em><\/p>\n Sikhism is the youngest organised religion that owes its beginnings in 15th century to a spiritual leader \u2014\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Guru Nanak.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>His views were distinct from those of Hinduism or Islam. The formalisation of the Sikh faith was executed by the tenth Guru \u2014\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Guru Gobind Singh<\/em>in April 1699 and their holy book is called\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Guru Granth Sahib<\/em>whom Sikhs venerate as their 11th and last Guru. Its\u00a0teachings promote truth, fidelity, harmony, seva (free service to people). Sikhs are dominant in the Punjab province of India but have spread to many regions in England, Canada, USA, are recognised by the turban the men\u00a0wear and the head scarves and bangles the women wear.<\/p>\n They have built majestic temples called\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Gurudwara<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0that usually have golden\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0tops. One gurudwara \u2014 popularly called\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Golden Temple<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0located in Amritsar is considered\u00a0\u00a0as headquarters of Sikhism. Some temples are located in Pakistan.\u00a0\u00a0Recently a special corridor was built in the India \u2014 Pakistan\u00a0\u00a0border that allows people to go to the\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kartarpur Sahib gurudwara<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0located 5 km across the border without having a Pakistan visa.<\/p>\n In addition to the principal world religions there are also several faiths believed in and practiced by tribal people in many parts of the world. However these are not being discussed here.<\/p>\n I have hardly talked of the ancient faith of Hinduism which even today is one of the principal religions in India. I shall write a separate chapter on it especially on the Bhagwad Gita<\/em>\u00a0that is proving to be very attractive and meaningful to the spiritually inclined people not only in India but overseas also. Its main character is Lord Krishna. <\/em>He\u00a0<\/em>is driving a chariot and clearing many common doubts of his companion\u00a0Arjun<\/em>.<\/p>\n Hare Krishna<\/em><\/p>\n ______________________________________________<\/p>\n There are several religions or faiths in the world. Of these, the principal ones are (In approximate order of establishment) Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Baha\u2019i Faith, Sikhism, Arya Samaj, etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":166069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[107,805],"class_list":["post-201889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-religion","tag-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Ravi-P.-Bhatia-150x150-1-e1596524021103.jpg\")
<\/a> Dr Ravi P Bhatia is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, an<\/em> educationist, Gandhian scholar and peace researcher. Retired professor, Delhi University. His new book, <\/em>A Garland of Ideas\u2014Gandhian, Religious, Educational, Environmental was published recently in Delhi.<\/em> ravipbhatia@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"