Vedanta and Yoga Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Vedanta and Yoga - Essay Example Rather than a firm communal set of beliefs, the religion stays as a composite of diverse philosophical and intellectual viewpoints with no single founding pioneer. The smriti and sruti of Hindu texts encompass philosophy, temple building, theology and rituals amid other subjects of the Hindu religion. Agamas, Upanishads and Vedas constitute some of the leading scriptures of Hinduism. Hinduism stands in the third position after Christianity and Islam worldwide (Rinehart 2004, pp. 155-177). This paper seeks to outline ways in which the Vedanta and Yoga introduced a revolutionary new aspect to Hindu religion. Vedanta encompasses the theoretical foundation of classical Hinduism formed from Upanishads whereas Yoga entails the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali approaches in generic Hinduism. Attacks became launched by the Upanishads of age to increase the concentration on rituals. In this regard, the different monistic theories of the Upanishads became incorporated into a theistic context by the Bh agavad Gita, a sacred Hindu scripture. In the early centuries, several Hindu based philosophical schools became formally organized together with Vedanta and Yoga. Moreover, the development of Indian philosophies came along with the booming of both Buddhist and Hindu philosophies from the fifth to the ninth century. Vedanta emerged as the most solitary prevailing and influential philosophical school of thought. As a result, Sanskritic culture declined following the Gupta period. In addition, a religious convention became established among the pre-educated ethnic societies going through acculturation under the influence of the first medieval Purunas. Similarly, Dharmashastras and Brahmamic codes of Hinduism beliefs also experienced drastic transformations under the Purana authors. This resulted into the emergence of conventional Hinduism that in turn dominated over all formerly known traditions (Rinehart 2004, 179-202). Pujas based Hindu gods eventually replaced the Buddha royal spher es in the eighth century. In the same period, the Buddha royal spheres also became transformed into a Vishnu avatar. Additionally, the academic discipline of studying Indian culture on a European viewpoint came to be introduced in the nineteenth century. Certain societies endeavored to incorporate and bring together Dharmic and Abrahamic philosophies in establishing societal reforms. The same period also marked the emergence of very innovative movements founded on the teachings and personalities of individuals which remained deep-rooted in the aboriginal tradition of the religion. Moreover, prominent philosophers of Hinduism reframed, transformed and provided the religion’s introductory manuscripts for present-day audiences in new restatements in order to raise Vedanta and Yoga profiles in the West as well as attracting attention and followers (Sivananda 1999, n.p.). Vedanta indicates atman to be inarticulate from Brahman’s in the end, and that the objective of life wo uld be to recognize that an individual’s atman stays indistinguishable from that of Brahman. According to the Upanishads, an individual completely conscious of atman as the personal significance of one’s own self comprehends a personality with Brahman and in so doing reaches moksha. Hence, moksha relies on God’s grace and love towards Him whereas atman relies on God. Traditional Vedanta considered pratyaksa and anumana to be valid but inferior while shabda pramana to be the most dependable wealth of knowledge. Also, Vedantic philosophies became systemized into a single coherent discourse.

Chinese-English code-switching in Fashion Magazines Essay

Chinese-English code-switching in Fashion Magazines - Essay Example The essay "Chinese-English code-switching in Fashion Magazines" concerns the Fashion Magazines and Chinese-English code-switching in them. Editors of fashion magazines pay close attention to the contexts of linguistics and how they relate to the reader. Catalogues of genre and cultural meaning play important roles in determining and feeding into target audiences so that the magazines make a profit. Both utilizations of code-switching describe how readers view text and absorb it from various geographical areas. The term code-switching derives from the linguistic term denoting the concurrent utilization of more than a single language in conversation. John Gibbons made the first major attempt to study it at Hong Kong University where the students spoke ‘university talk’. It is especially used in context of sociocultural linguistics, which is the study of how linguistic structure clarifies how a speaker’s selectivity of a specific language is influenced by social cont exts in which it is given. In the middle of the English sentence, the Chinese symbol for â€Å"a† and â€Å"whose† is inserted rather than the English word. The hypothesized reason to why this occurs is due to the fact that bilinguals are not completely efficient in the second language. The variety of contexts may be race, gender, ethnicity, age, and sexuality. These factors are acknowledged when implementing code-switching into media forms like magazines. Magazines are a main media source used because of how broad of an audience it reaches. The age group can vary from teens to the elderly and has the capability to reach its audience members via stores, mail, street stands, etc. Fashion in particular has dominated the market since the eighteenth century when the first Gentleman’s magazine came out in London (Ashish, 2009). This is why code-switching has been incorporated into this form of media outlet in an effort to get the target audience to respond in the des ired manner. In Japan, the implication of foreign language into magazines of fashion is not subsidiary to any subject restrictions (Haarmann, 2000). With such a limitless palette in which to work with, the editors as well as advertisers were able to target their audience better. The four context motivators to utilizing code-switching first came to light in the late 1970s when Cantonese-English code-switching arose in Hong Kong (David and Li, 2003). Euphemism was a sociolinguistic phenomenon that illustrated relation connections with the community with its focus being to relay the intended message of the speaker (Wenzhao, 2001). It is the act of replacing a potentially rude or offensive word with a lesser one, not only to appease the listener but to protect the speaker from trouble. Although, it can be amusing, it can be misleading. Bilingual punning derived from the intent to assign double meaning (David and Li, 2003). The way it is done is by taking two different words in two diffe rent languages and combining them into a sentence to form a joke or amusing sentence, hence the term pun. In this context, the meaning of specificity is not far from what it implies in that English is used in place of Chinese/Cantonese words for either the reason that the English word is more specific or general (David and Li, 2003). Therefore, the sentence is issued the way it was initially intended. Lastly, the