RELIGION AND TEMPORAL CONCERNS

Abstract

There is quite frequently a certain dichotomy in man's life, which divides it into spiritual needs and material needs. with religion taking care of the former and other sciences the latter. Often, even world religions like Christianity and Hinduism by their overemphasis on the spirit and a certain neglect of man's physical needs have given rise to the arbitrary opposition between religions and temporal values. However, religion which has to take care of the ultimate concerns of human life should deal with the whole man, both spiritual as well as temporal aspects of his life. Tn this issue of Journal of Dharma we discuss how religion can come to gripe with the temporal or this worldly concerns of man. These papers were presented at an international seminar organized by us to deal with this issue. We have allowed the papers to retain a certain amount of their original tone and tenor of presentation in a live seminar, in order to give a clear idea of the authors' actual confrontation with the issues.