SALVATION FROM THE DALIT PERSPECTIVE: EARTHLY OR ESCHATOLOGICAL

Abstract

Salvation (moksha) and liberation (mukti) are often 'conceived as the goals of religious yearning and philosophical search of the humans. While the former stresses the eschatological end, the latter looks into the existential situation from which one is to be liberated. The students of Indian religions and cultures speak of two traditions, namely, (scriptural tradition of vedas and other sacred books) and the oral traditions of culturally backward peoples through their myths, folklores and primitive rituals. The Scholars who have an ethnocentric atitude think that the Sanskrit religious tradition is the great tradition because it is 'intellectual, mystical, classical and 'higher' philosophy, and the oral as the little tradition.