115-398: Thomas Merton was a twentieth-century Catholic monk, writer, and scholar of comparative religion. Thomas Merton may also refer to: Thomas Merton Thomas Merton OCSO (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968), religious name M. Louis, was an American Trappist monk , writer, theologian, mystic , poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion . He
230-772: A Carthusian at St. Hugh's Charterhouse in England. Merton had harbored an appreciation for the Carthusian order since coming to Gethsemani in 1941, and would later come to consider leaving the Cistercians for that order. In 1948 The Seven Storey Mountain was published to critical acclaim, with fan mail to Merton reaching new heights. Merton also published several works for the monastery that year, which were: Guide to Cistercian Life , Cistercian Contemplatives , Figures for an Apocalypse , and The Spirit of Simplicity . That year Saint Mary's College (Indiana) also published
345-601: A Catholic, and by July 26 was baptized at a church in nearby New Haven, Kentucky , leaving the following day. This would be the last time the two saw each other. John Paul died on April 17, 1943, when his plane failed over the English Channel . A poem by Merton to John Paul appears in The Seven Storey Mountain . Merton kept journals throughout his stay at Gethsemani. Initially, he felt writing to be at odds with his vocation, worried it would foster
460-489: A Hindu religious identity". Scholars state that Hindu, Buddhist and Jain identities are retrospectively-introduced modern constructions. Inscriptional evidence from the 8th century onwards, in regions such as South India, suggests that medieval era India, at both elite and folk religious practices level, likely had a "shared religious culture", and their collective identities were "multiple, layered and fuzzy". Even among Hinduism denominations such as Shaivism and Vaishnavism,
575-954: A New Zealand painter active in Europe and the United States, and Ruth Jenkins Merton, an American Quaker and artist. They had met at a painting school in Paris. He was baptized in the Church of England , in accordance with his father's wishes. Merton's father was often absent during his son's childhood. During World War I , in August 1915, the Merton family left France for the United States. They lived first with Ruth's parents in Queens , New York, and then settled near them in Douglaston . In 1917,
690-497: A booklet by Merton, What Is Contemplation? Merton published as well that year a biography, Exile Ends in Glory: The Life of a Trappistine, Mother M. Berchmans, O.C.S.O . Merton's abbot, Dunne, died on August 3, 1948, while riding on a train to Georgia . Dunne's passing was painful for Merton, who had come to look on the abbot as a father figure and spiritual mentor. On August 15 the monastic community elected Dom James Fox,
805-583: A call to religious life . On December 10, 1941, Thomas Merton arrived at the Abbey of Gethsemani and spent three days at the monastery guest house, waiting for acceptance into the order. On December 13 he was accepted into the monastery as a postulant by Frederic Dunne, Gethsemani's abbot since 1935, and given the religious name Mary Louis . Merton had a severe cold from his stay in the guest house, where he sat in front of an open window to prove his sincerity. During his initial weeks at Gethsemani, Merton studied
920-668: A common name for the country. Al-Biruni 's 11th-century text Tarikh Al-Hind , and the texts of the Delhi Sultanate period use the term 'Hindu', where it includes all non-Islamic people such as Buddhists, and retains the ambiguity of being "a region or a religion". The 'Hindu' community occurs as the amorphous 'Other' of the Muslim community in the court chronicles, according to the Indian historian Romila Thapar . The comparative religion scholar Wilfred Cantwell Smith notes that
1035-534: A consequence, religious groups have an interest in being recognised as distinct from the Hindu majority in order to qualify as a "religious minority". Thus, the Supreme Court was forced to consider the question whether Jainism is part of Hinduism in 2005 and 2006. Starting after the 10th century and particularly after the 12th century Islamic invasion, states Sheldon Pollock , the political response fused with
1150-411: A deacon in the order, and on May 26 ( Ascension Thursday ) he was ordained a priest, saying his first Mass the following day. In June, the monastery celebrated its centenary , for which Merton authored the book Gethsemani Magnificat in commemoration. In November, Merton started teaching mystical theology to novices at Gethsemani, a duty he greatly enjoyed. By this time Merton was a huge success outside
1265-582: A diversity of beliefs, and seems to oscillate between Hindus holding a centralist and pluralist religious views. In the texts of Delhi Sultanate era, states Sharma, the term Hindu remains ambiguous on whether it means people of a region or religion, giving the example of Ibn Battuta's explanation of the name "Hindu Kush" for a mountain range in Afghanistan. It was so called, wrote Ibn Battuta, because many Indian slaves died there of snow cold, as they were marched across that mountain range. The term Hindu there
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#17327724229941380-571: A fixed set of religious beliefs within Hinduism. One need not be religious in the minimal sense, states Julius Lipner , to be accepted as Hindu by Hindus, or to describe oneself as Hindu. Hindus subscribe to a diversity of ideas on spirituality and traditions, but have no ecclesiastical order, no unquestionable religious authorities, no governing body, nor a single founding prophet; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist. Because of
1495-400: A former US Navy officer, as their new abbot. In October Merton discussed with him his ongoing attraction to the Carthusian and Camaldolese orders and their eremitical way of life, to which Fox responded by assuring Merton that he belonged at Gethsemani. Fox permitted Merton to continue his writing, Merton now having gained substantial recognition outside the monastery. On December 21 Merton
1610-570: A geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent . It is assumed that the term "Hindu" traces back to Avestan scripture Vendidad which refers to land of seven rivers as Hapta Hendu which itself is a cognate to Sanskrit term Sapta Sindhuḥ (This term Sapta Sindhuḥ is mentioned in RigVeda that refers to a North western Indian region of seven rivers and as an India whole). The Greek cognates of
1725-593: A head-on collision. In 1953 he published a journal of monastery life titled The Sign of Jonas . Merton became well known for his dialogues with other faiths and his non-violent stand during the race riots and Vietnam War of the 1960s. By this time, he had adopted a broadly human viewpoint, concerned about issues like peace, racial tolerance, and social equality. In a letter to Nicaraguan liberation theologian Ernesto Cardenal (who had entered Gethsemani but left in 1959 to study theology in Mexico), Merton wrote: "The world
1840-542: A keen proponent of interfaith understanding, exploring Eastern religions through study and practice. He pioneered dialogue with prominent Asian spiritual figures including the Dalai Lama , Japanese writer D. T. Suzuki , Thai Buddhist monk Buddhadasa , and Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh . Thomas Merton was born in Prades, Pyrénées-Orientales , France, on January 31, 1915, to parents of Welsh origin: Owen Merton ,
1955-668: A peace prize, has been awarded since 1972 by the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Social Justice in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania. The 2015, in tribute to the centennial year of Merton's birth, The Festival of Faiths in Louisville Kentucky honored his life and work with Sacred Journey’s the Legacy of Thomas Merton . An annual lecture in his name is given at his alma mater, Columbia University in which
2070-574: A professor with whom he maintained a lifetime friendship. In January 1938, Merton graduated from Columbia with a B.A. in English. In June, his friend Seymour Freedgood arranged a meeting with Mahanambrata Brahmachari , a Hindu monk visiting New York from the University of Chicago . Merton was impressed by him. While Merton expected Brahmachari to recommend Hinduism, instead he advised Merton to reconnect with Christianity. He suggested Merton read
2185-527: A prominent member of the Tibetan community. Then, in what was to be his final letter, he noted, "In my contacts with these new friends, I also feel a consolation in my own faith in Christ and in his dwelling presence. I hope and believe he may be present in the hearts of all of us." Merton's role as a writer is explored in novelist Mary Gordon 's On Merton (2019). According to The Seven Storey Mountain ,
2300-452: A province near Bangkok , Thailand, attending a monastic conference. After giving a talk at the morning session, he was found dead later in the afternoon in the room of his cottage, wearing only shorts, lying on his back with a short-circuited Hitachi floor fan lying across his body. His associate, Jean Leclercq, stated: "In all probability the death of Thomas Merton was due in part to heart failure, in part to an electric shock." Since there
2415-401: A reasonable construction of history. However, the existence of non-textual evidence such as cave temples separated by thousands of kilometers, as well as lists of medieval era pilgrimage sites, is evidence of a shared sacred geography and existence of a community that was self-aware of shared religious premises and landscape. Further, it is a norm in evolving cultures that there is a gap between
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#17327724229942530-430: A result of Western influence during its colonial history. Scholars such as Fleming and Eck state that the post-Epic era literature from the 1st millennium CE amply demonstrate that there was a historic concept of the Indian subcontinent as a sacred geography, where the sacredness was a shared set of religious ideas. For example, the twelve Jyotirlingas of Shaivism and fifty-one Shaktipithas of Shaktism are described in
2645-646: A sacred pilgrimage site is documented in the Varanasimahatmya text embedded inside the Skanda Purana , and the oldest versions of this text are dated to 6th to 8th-century CE. The idea of twelve sacred sites in Shiva Hindu tradition spread across the Indian subcontinent appears not only in the medieval era temples but also in copper plate inscriptions and temple seals discovered in different sites. According to Bhardwaj, non-Hindu texts such as
2760-756: A saint. [...] When Khusraw stopped at his residence, [Arjan] came out and had an interview with [Khusraw]. Giving him some elementary spiritual precepts picked up here and there, he made a mark with saffron on his forehead, which is called qashqa in the idiom of the Hindus and which they consider lucky. When this was reported to me, I realized how perfectly false he was and ordered him brought to me. I awarded his houses and dwellings and those of his children to Murtaza Khan, and I ordered his possessions and goods confiscated and him executed. Sikh scholar Pashaura Singh states, "in Persian writings, Sikhs were regarded as Hindu in
2875-462: A sophomore at Columbia University in New York City. There he established close and long-lasting friendships with the painter Ad Reinhardt , poet Robert Lax , commentator Ralph de Toledano , and the law student John Slate . He also befriended the publisher Robert Giroux . Merton attended an 18th-century English literature course during the spring semester taught by Mark Van Doren ,
2990-487: A student nurse assigned to his care. (He referred to her in his diary as "M.") He wrote poems to her and reflected on the relationship in "A Midsummer Diary for M." Merton struggled to maintain his vows while being deeply in love. It is not known if he ever consummated the relationship. On December 10, 1968, Merton was at a Red Cross retreat facility named Sawang Khaniwat ( Thai : สวางคนิวาส ) in Samut Prakan ,
3105-520: A tendency to individuality. But his superior, Dunne, tasked Merton beginning in 1943 to translate religious texts and write biographies of saints. On March 19, 1944, Merton made his temporary vows and was given the black scapular and leather belt. In November 1944 a manuscript Merton had given to friend Robert Lax the previous year was published by James Laughlin at New Directions : a book of poetry titled Thirty Poems . In 1946 New Directions published another poetry collection by Merton, A Man in
3220-585: A uniform civil code, where all citizens are subject to the same laws, everyone has equal civil rights, and individual rights do not depend on the individual's religion. In contrast, opponents of Hindu nationalists remark that eliminating religious law from India poses a threat to the cultural identity and religious rights of Muslims, and people of Islamic faith have a constitutional right to Islamic shariah -based personal laws. A specific law, contentious between Hindu nationalists and their opponents in India, relates to
3335-604: A wedding or when a baby is born or cremation rituals. Some Hindus go on pilgrimage to shared sites they consider spiritually significant, practice one or more forms of bhakti or puja , celebrate mythology and epics, major festivals, love and respect for guru and family, and other cultural traditions. A Hindu could: In the Constitution of India , the word "Hindu" has been used in some places to denote persons professing any of these religions: Hinduism , Jainism , Buddhism or Sikhism . This however has been challenged by
3450-473: Is a controversial political subject, with no consensus about what it means or implies in terms of the form of government and religious rights of the minorities. There are 1.2 billion Hindus worldwide (15% of world's population), with about 95% of them being concentrated in India alone. Along with Christians (31.5%), Muslims (23.2%) and Buddhists (7.1%), Hindus are one of the four major religious groups of
3565-471: Is a term used to describe the culture and identity of Hindus and Hinduism , including the historic Vedic people . Hindu culture can be intensively seen in the form of art , architecture , history , diet , clothing , astrology and other forms. The culture of India and Hinduism is deeply influenced and assimilated with each other. With the Indianisation of southeast Asia and Greater India ,
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3680-696: Is a way of perceiving the substantial reality of all things—their goodness, their beauty, and their oneness (ichinyo). Zhong interpreted this as Merton aligning Zen Buddhism with an enlightment of the Aristotelean-Thomistic transcendentals common to everything that has or is or will exist. In keeping with his idea that non-Christian faiths had much to offer Christianity in experience and perspective and little or nothing in terms of doctrine, Merton distinguished between Zen Buddhism, an expression of history and culture, and Zen. By Zen, Merton meant something not bound by culture, religion or belief. Merton
3795-676: Is ambivalent and could mean geographical region or religion. The term Hindu appears in the texts from the Mughal Empire era. Jahangir , for example, called the Sikh Guru Arjan a Hindu: There was a Hindu named Arjan in Gobindwal on the banks of the Beas River. Pretending to be a spiritual guide, he had won over as devotees many simple-minded Indians and even some ignorant, stupid Muslims by broadcasting his claims to be
3910-478: Is an organic relation of Sikhs to Hindus, states Zaehner, both in religious thought and their communities, and virtually all Sikhs' ancestors were Hindus. Marriages between Sikhs and Hindus, particularly among Khatris , were frequent. Some Hindu families brought up a son as a Sikh, and some Hindus view Sikhism as a tradition within Hinduism, even though the Sikh faith is a distinct religion. Julius Lipner states that
4025-643: Is documented in Islamic literature such as those relating to 8th century Muhammad bin-Qasim , 11th century Mahmud of Ghazni , the Persian traveler Al Biruni, the 14th century Islamic army invasion led by Timur, and various Sunni Islamic rulers of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire. There were occasional exceptions such as Akbar who stopped the persecution of Hindus, and occasional severe persecution such as under Aurangzeb , who destroyed temples, forcibly converted non-Muslims to Islam and banned
4140-484: Is full of great criminals with enormous power, and they are in a death struggle with each other. It is a huge gang battle, using well-meaning lawyers and policemen and clergymen as their front, controlling papers, means of communication, and enrolling everybody in their armies." He developed a personal radicalism which was political but not overtly sympathetic to Marxism, even though his Cisterican critic Louis Lekai identified Merton's "adherence to Marxian slogans." Merton
4255-425: Is influenced by Merton's work. Thomas Merton is portrayed briefly by Adam Kilgour as a character in the 1994 movie Quiz Show . Hindu Traditional Hindus ( Hindustani: [ˈɦɪndu] ; / ˈ h ɪ n d uː z / ; also known as Sanātanīs ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism , also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma . Historically, the term has also been used as
4370-567: Is this Rama to be described.. who freed Varanasi from the mleccha (barbarian, Turk Muslim) horde, and built there a golden temple of Sarngadhara". Pollock notes that the Yadava king Ramacandra is described as a devotee of deity Shiva (Shaivism), yet his political achievements and temple construction sponsorship in Varanasi, far from his kingdom's location in the Deccan region, is described in
4485-544: Is widely recognized as an important 20th-century Catholic mystic and thinker. Interest in his work contributed to a rise in spiritual exploration beginning in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. Merton's letters and diaries reveal the intensity with which their author focused on social justice issues, including the civil rights movement and proliferation of nuclear arms . He had prohibited their publication for 25 years after his death. Publication raised new interest in Merton's life. The Abbey of Gethsemani benefits from
4600-745: The Confessions of Augustine and The Imitation of Christ . Merton read them both. In August 1938, he attended Mass at Corpus Christi Church , located near the Columbia campus. He began to read more extensively in Catholicism. On November 16, 1938, Thomas Merton underwent the rite of baptism at Corpus Christi Church and received Holy Communion . On February 22, 1939, Merton received his M.A. in English from Columbia University. Merton decided he would pursue his PhD at Columbia and moved from Douglaston to Greenwich Village . He then discerned
4715-496: The Catholic Church and Merton's political foes. The Spring 2024 issue of The Catholic Historical Review published "The Official Thai Reports on Thomas Merton's Death". The official cause of death was a natural cause, "sudden heart failure" and not "accidental electrocution." The police report states that Merton was already dead before he came into contact with a faulty fan that was found lying across his body. Merton
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4830-493: The Hindu Sabhas (Hindu associations), and ultimately a Hindu-identity driven nationalism in the 1920s. The colonial era Hindu revivalism and mobilisation, along with Hindu nationalism, states Peter van der Veer, was primarily a reaction to and competition with Muslim separatism and Muslim nationalism. The successes of each side fed the fears of the other, leading to the growth of Hindu nationalism and Muslim nationalism in
4945-600: The United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom . These together accounted for 99% of the world's Hindu population, and the remaining nations of the world combined had about 6 million Hindus as of 2010 . The word Hindu is an exonym . This word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan and Sanskrit word Sindhu , which means "a large body of water", covering "river, ocean". It was used as
5060-830: The Upanishads . The Puranas and the Itihasa (mainly Ramayana and the Mahabharata ) are enduring traditions among Indonesian Hindus, expressed in community dances and shadow puppet ( wayang ) performances. As in India, Indonesian Hindus recognise four paths of spirituality, calling it Catur Marga . Similarly, like Hindus in India, Balinese Hindus believe that there are four proper goals of human life, calling it Catur Purusartha – dharma (pursuit of moral and ethical living), artha (pursuit of wealth and creative activity), kama (pursuit of joy and love) and moksha (pursuit of self-knowledge and liberation). Hindu culture
5175-399: The "lived and historical realities" of a religious tradition and the emergence of related "textual authorities". The tradition and temples likely existed well before the medieval era Hindu manuscripts appeared that describe them and the sacred geography. This, states Fleming, is apparent given the sophistication of the architecture and the sacred sites along with the variance in the versions of
5290-587: The 17th-century Bhakta Mala text using the phrase "Hindu dharma ". Scholar Arvind Sharma notes that the term "Hindus" was used in the 'Brahmanabad settlement' which Muhammad ibn Qasim made with non-Muslims after the Arab invasion of northwestern Sindh region of India, in 712 CE. The term 'Hindu' meant people who were non-Muslims, and it included Buddhists of the region. In the 11th-century text of Al Biruni, Hindus are referred to as "religious antagonists" to Islam, as those who believe in rebirth, presents them to hold
5405-801: The 1920s, as a reaction to the Islamic Khilafat Movement wherein Indian Muslims championed and took the cause of the Turkish Ottoman sultan as the Caliph of all Muslims, at the end of the World War I . Hindus viewed this development as one of divided loyalties of Indian Muslim population, of pan-Islamic hegemony, and questioned whether Indian Muslims were a part of an inclusive anti-colonial Indian nationalism. The Hindu nationalism ideology that emerged, states Jeffrelot,
5520-579: The 19th century as a response to British colonialism by Indian nationalists and neo-Hinduism gurus. Jaffrelot states that the efforts of Christian missionaries and Islamic proselytizers, during the British colonial era, each of whom tried to gain new converts to their own religion, by stereotyping and stigmatising Hindus to an identity of being inferior and superstitious, contributed to Hindus re-asserting their spiritual heritage and counter cross examining Islam and Christianity, forming organisations such as
5635-521: The 7th-century CE Chinese text Records on the Western Regions by the Buddhist scholar Xuanzang . Xuanzang uses the transliterated term In-tu whose "connotation overflows in the religious" according to Arvind Sharma . While Xuanzang suggested that the term refers to the country named after the moon, another Buddhist scholar I-tsing contradicted the conclusion saying that In-tu was not
5750-703: The Birds of Appetite as "Wisdom in Emptiness". Merton wrote then that "any attempt to handle Zen in theological language is bound to miss the point," calling his final statements "an example of how not to approach Zen." Merton struggled to reconcile the Western and Christian impulse to catalog and put into words with the ideas of Christian apophatic theology and the unspeakable nature of the Zen experience. Zhong Fushi mentions having met Merton, who allegedly said to him “ Zen,
5865-552: The Columbia chaplaincy invites a prominent Catholic to speak. The campus ministry building at St. Bonaventure University , the school where Merton taught English briefly between graduating from Columbia University with his M.A. in English and entering the Trappist order, is named after him. St. Bonaventure University also holds an important repository of Merton materials worldwide. Bishop Marrocco/Thomas Merton Catholic Secondary School in downtown Toronto, Ontario , Canada, which
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#17327724229945980-508: The Divided Sea , which, combined with Thirty Poems , attracted some recognition for him. The same year Merton's manuscript for The Seven Storey Mountain was accepted by Harcourt Brace & Company . The Seven Storey Mountain , Merton's autobiography , was written during two-hour intervals in the monastery scriptorium as a personal project. On March 19, 1947 he took his solemn vows, binding for life. He also began corresponding with
6095-476: The European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus. Other prominent mentions of 'Hindu' include the epigraphical inscriptions from Andhra Pradesh kingdoms who battled military expansion of Muslim dynasties in the 14th century, where the word 'Hindu' partly implies a religious identity in contrast to 'Turks' or Islamic religious identity. The term Hindu
6210-613: The Gethsemani Abbey. In 2018, Hugh Turley and David Martin published The Martyrdom of Thomas Merton: An Investigation , presenting the evidentiary record's refutation of claims of accidental electrocution , and suggesting Merton was assassinated for his political opposition to the Vietnam War . A subsequent book by Turley, Thomas Merton's Betrayers: The Case Against Abbot James Fox and Author John Howard Griffin , presents documentary evidence of manipulation and coverup by
6325-737: The Hindu identities, states Leslie Orr, lacked "firm definitions and clear boundaries". Overlaps in Jain-Hindu identities have included Jains worshipping Hindu deities, intermarriages between Jains and Hindus, and medieval era Jain temples featuring Hindu religious icons and sculpture. Beyond India, on Java island of Indonesia , historical records attest to marriages between Hindus and Buddhists, medieval era temple architecture and sculptures that simultaneously incorporate Hindu and Buddhist themes, where Hinduism and Buddhism merged and functioned as "two separate paths within one overall system", according to Ann Kenney and other scholars. Similarly, there
6440-642: The Hindu identity and religious response to Islamic invasion and wars developed in different kingdoms, such as wars between Islamic Sultanates and the Vijayanagara kingdom, and Islamic raids on the kingdoms in Tamil Nadu . These wars were described not just using the mythical story of Rama from Ramayana, states Chattopadhyaya, the medieval records used a wide range of religious symbolism and myths that are now considered as part of Hindu literature. This emergence of religious with political terminology began with
6555-477: The Hindu-majority post-British India. After the separation of India and Pakistan in 1947, the Hindu nationalism movement developed the concept of Hindutva in second half of the 20th century. The Hindu nationalism movement has sought to reform Indian laws, that critics say attempts to impose Hindu values on India's Islamic minority. Gerald Larson states, for example, that Hindu nationalists have sought
6670-760: The Hindus and intensely scrutinized them, but did not interrogate and avoided reporting the practices and religion of Mughal and Arabs in South Asia", and often relied on Muslim scholars to characterise Hindus. In contemporary era, the term Hindus are individuals who identify with one or more aspects of Hinduism , whether they are practising or non-practicing or Laissez-faire . The term does not include those who identify with other Indian religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism or various animist tribal religions found in India such as Sarnaism . The term Hindu, in contemporary parlance, includes people who accept themselves as culturally or ethnically Hindu rather than with
6785-501: The Indian subcontinent. In the 20th century, the sense of religious nationalism grew in India, states van der Veer, but only Muslim nationalism succeeded with the formation of the West and East Pakistan (later split into Pakistan and Bangladesh), as "an Islamic state" upon independence. Religious riots and social trauma followed as millions of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs moved out of the newly created Islamic states and resettled into
6900-455: The Indic religious culture and doctrines. Temples dedicated to deity Rama were built from north to south India, and textual records as well as hagiographic inscriptions began comparing the Hindu epic of Ramayana to regional kings and their response to Islamic attacks. The Yadava king of Devagiri named Ramacandra , for example states Pollock, is described in a 13th-century record as, "How
7015-548: The Lycée Ingres. In the summer of 1928, he withdrew Merton from Lycée Ingres, saying the family was moving to England. In October 1933, Merton, age 18, entered Clare College, Cambridge , as an undergraduate to study French and Italian. He was unhappy at Clare College, preferring loafing over studying, and fathered a child that he never met, although he later signed at least two official court documents stating that he had "no children". In January 1935, Merton enrolled as
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#17327724229947130-570: The Puranic literature. According to Diana L. Eck and other Indologists such as André Wink, Muslim invaders were aware of Hindu sacred geography such as Mathura, Ujjain, and Varanasi by the 11th century. These sites became a target of their serial attacks in the centuries that followed. The Hindus have been persecuted during the medieval and modern era. The medieval persecution included waves of plunder, killing, destruction of temples and enslavement by Turk-Mongol Muslim armies from central Asia. This
7245-725: The Sikhs and by neo-Buddhists who were formerly Hindus. According to Sheen and Boyle, Jains have not objected to being covered by personal laws termed under 'Hindu', but Indian courts have acknowledged that Jainism is a distinct religion. The Republic of India is in the peculiar situation that the Supreme Court of India has repeatedly been called upon to define "Hinduism" because the Constitution of India , while it prohibits "discrimination of any citizen" on grounds of religion in article 15, article 30 foresees special rights for "All minorities, whether based on religion or language". As
7360-802: The Thomas Merton Institute for Catholic Life at the Church of Notre Dame . Merton's life was the subject of The Glory of the World , a play by Charles L. Mee . Roy Cockrum, a former monk who won the Powerball lottery in 2014, helped finance the production of the play in New York. Prior to New York the play was being shown in Louisville, Kentucky. In the 2017 movie First Reformed , written and directed by Paul Schrader , Ethan Hawke 's character (a middle-aged Protestant reverend)
7475-408: The Trappist sign language and daily work and worship routine. In March 1942, during the first Sunday of Lent , Merton was accepted as a novice at the convent. In June, he received a letter from his brother John Paul stating he was soon to leave for the war and would be coming to Gethsemani to visit before leaving. On July 17 John Paul arrived in Gethsemani. John Paul expressed his desire to become
7590-434: The Yavanas [Muslims], The Kali age now deserves deepest congratulations for being at the zenith of its power, gone is the sacred learning, hidden is refinement, hushed is the voice of Dharma . The historiographic writings in Telugu language from the 13th- and 14th-century Kakatiya dynasty period presents a similar "alien other (Turk)" and "self-identity (Hindu)" contrast. Chattopadhyaya, and other scholars, state that
7705-423: The celebration of Hindu festivals such as Holi and Diwali . Other recorded persecution of Hindus include those under the reign of 18th century Tipu Sultan in south India, and during the colonial era. In the modern era, religious persecution of Hindus have been reported outside India in Pakistan and Bangladesh . Christophe Jaffrelot states that modern Hindu nationalism was born in Maharashtra , in
7820-431: The custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs is a modern phenomena, but one that is a convenient abstraction. Distinguishing Indian traditions is a fairly recent practice, states Lipner, and is the result of "not only Western preconceptions about the nature of religion in general and of religion in India in particular, but also with the political awareness that has arisen in India" in its people and
7935-421: The early medieval era Puranas as pilgrimage sites around a theme. This sacred geography and Shaiva temples with same iconography, shared themes, motifs and embedded legends are found across India, from the Himalayas to hills of South India, from Ellora Caves to Varanasi by about the middle of 1st millennium. Shakti temples, dated to a few centuries later, are verifiable across the subcontinent. Varanasi as
8050-440: The family moved into an old house in Flushing , Queens, where Merton's brother, John Paul, was born on November 2, 1918. The family was considering returning to France when Ruth was diagnosed with stomach cancer . She died from it on October 21, 1921, in Bellevue Hospital . Merton was six years old and his brother not yet three. In 1926, when Merton was eleven, his father enrolled him in a boys' boarding school in Montauban ,
8165-485: The first Muslim invasion of Sindh in the 8th century CE, and intensified 13th century onwards. The 14th-century Sanskrit text, Madhuravijayam , a memoir written by Gangadevi , the wife of Vijayanagara prince, for example describes the consequences of war using religious terms, I very much lament for what happened to the groves in Madhura , The coconut trees have all been cut and in their place are to be seen, rows of iron spikes with human skulls dangling at
8280-486: The highest percentage of Hindus (in decreasing order) are Nepal , India , Mauritius , Fiji , Guyana , Bhutan , Suriname , Trinidad and Tobago , Qatar , Sri Lanka , Kuwait , Bangladesh , Réunion , Malaysia , and Singapore . The fertility rate, that is children per woman, for Hindus is 2.4, which is less than the world average of 2.5. Pew Research projects that there will be 1.4 billion Hindus by 2050. In more ancient times, Hindu kingdoms arose and spread
8395-609: The historical records in Vaishnavism terms of Rama, a deity Vishnu avatar. Pollock presents many such examples and suggests an emerging Hindu political identity that was grounded in the Hindu religious text of Ramayana, one that has continued into the modern times, and suggests that this historic process began with the arrival of Islam in India. Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya has questioned the Pollock theory and presented textual and inscriptional evidence. According to Chattopadhyaya,
8510-476: The influential Asiatick Researches founded in the 18th century, later called The Asiatic Society , initially identified just two religions in India – Islam, and Hinduism. These orientalists included all Indian religions such as Buddhism as a subgroup of Hinduism in the 18th century. These texts called followers of Islam as Mohamedans , and all others as Hindus . The text, by the early 19th century, began dividing Hindus into separate groups, for chronology studies of
8625-486: The legal age of marriage for girls. Hindu nationalists seek that the legal age for marriage be eighteen that is universally applied to all girls regardless of their religion and that marriages be registered with local government to verify the age of marriage. Muslim clerics consider this proposal as unacceptable because under the shariah-derived personal law, a Muslim girl can be married at any age after she reaches puberty. Hindu nationalism in India, states Katharine Adeney,
8740-678: The local Indian population, in a religious or cultural sense, is unclear. Competing theories state that Hindu identity developed in the British colonial era , or that it may have developed post-8th century CE after the Muslim invasions and medieval Hindu–Muslim wars . A sense of Hindu identity and the term Hindu appears in some texts dated between the 13th and 18th century in Sanskrit and Bengali . The 14th- and 18th-century Indian poets such as Vidyapati , Kabir , Tulsidas and Eknath used
8855-509: The memoirs of Chinese Buddhist and Persian Muslim travellers attest to the existence and significance of the pilgrimage to sacred geography among Hindus by later 1st millennium CE. According to Fleming, those who question whether the term Hindu and Hinduism are a modern construction in a religious context present their arguments based on some texts that have survived into the modern era, either of Islamic courts or of literature published by Western missionaries or colonial-era Indologists aiming for
8970-415: The mid-19th century, colonial orientalist texts further distinguished Hindus from Buddhists , Sikhs and Jains , but the colonial laws continued to consider all of them to be within the scope of the term Hindu until about mid-20th century. Scholars state that the custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs is a modern phenomenon. At approximately 1.2 billion, Hindus are
9085-399: The military and political campaign during the medieval era wars in Deccan peninsula of India, and in the north India, were no longer a quest for sovereignty, they embodied a political and religious animosity against the "otherness of Islam", and this began the historical process of Hindu identity formation. Andrew Nicholson, in his review of scholarship on Hindu identity history, states that
9200-550: The monastery despite his international reputation and voluminous correspondence with many well-known figures of the day. At the end of 1968, the new abbot, Flavian Burns, allowed him the freedom to undertake a tour of Asia, during which he met the Dalai Lama in India on three occasions, and also the Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen master Chatral Rinpoche , followed by a solitary retreat near Darjeeling , India. In Darjeeling, he befriended Tsewang Yishey Pemba ,
9315-441: The monastery, The Seven Storey Mountain having sold over 150,000 copies. It is on National Review ' s list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the twentieth century. In this particularly prolific period of his life, Merton is believed to have been suffering from loneliness and stress . One incident indicative of this is his drive with the monastery's jeep, acting in a possibly manic state, during which he almost caused
9430-513: The most about— Zen . Having studied the Desert Fathers and other Christian mystics as part of his monastic vocation, Merton had a deep understanding of what it was those men sought and experienced in their seeking. He found many parallels between the language of these Christian mystics and the language of Zen philosophy. In 1959, Merton began a dialogue with D. T. Suzuki which was published nearly ten years later in Merton's Zen and
9545-679: The name of the Indus River and also referred to its tributaries. The actual term 'hindu' first occurs, states Gavin Flood, as "a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus (Sanskrit: Sindhu )", more specifically in the 5th-century BCE, DNa inscription of Darius I . The Punjab region , called Sapta Sindhu in the Vedas, is called Hapta Hindu in Zend Avesta . The 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I mentions
9660-431: The phrase Hindu dharma (Hinduism) and contrasted it with Turaka dharma ( Islam ). The Christian friar Sebastiao Manrique used the term 'Hindu' in a religious context in 1649. In the 18th century, European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus , in contrast to Mohamedans for groups such as Turks, Mughals and Arabs , who were adherents of Islam. By
9775-511: The points, In the highways which were once charming with anklets sound of beautiful women, are now heard ear-piercing noises of Brahmins being dragged, bound in iron-fetters, The waters of Tambraparni , which were once white with sandal paste, are now flowing red with the blood of cows slaughtered by miscreants, Earth is no longer the producer of wealth, nor does Indra give timely rains, The God of death takes his undue toll of what are left lives if undestroyed by
9890-433: The province of Hi[n]dush , referring to northwestern India. The people of India were referred to as Hinduvān and hindavī was used as the adjective for Indian language in the 8th century text Chachnama . According to D. N. Jha , the term 'Hindu' in these ancient records is an ethno-geographical term and did not refer to a religion. Among the earliest known records of 'Hindu' with connotations of religion may be in
10005-522: The religion and traditions across Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand , Nepal , Burma , Malaysia , Indonesia , Cambodia , Laos , Philippines , and what is now central Vietnam . Over 3 million Hindus are found in Bali Indonesia, a culture whose origins trace back to ideas brought by Hindu traders to Indonesian islands in the 1st millennium CE. Their sacred texts are also the Vedas and
10120-453: The religions have drawn their curved swords;" however, the date of this text is unclear and considered by most scholars to be more recent. In Islamic literature, 'Abd al-Malik Isami 's Persian work, Futuhu's-salatin , composed in the Deccan under Bahmani rule in 1350, uses the word ' hindi' to mean Indian in the ethno-geographical sense and the word ' hindu' to mean 'Hindu' in
10235-640: The royalties of Merton's writing. In addition, his writings attracted much interest in Catholic practice and thought, and in the Trappist vocation. In recognition of Merton's close association with Bellarmine University , the university established an official repository for Merton's archives at the Thomas Merton Center on the Bellarmine campus in Louisville, Kentucky . The Thomas Merton Award ,
10350-526: The same terms are " Indus " (for the river) and " India " (for the land of the river). Likewise Hebrew cognate hōd-dū refers to India mentioned in Hebrew Bible ( Esther 1:1 ). The term " Hindu " also implied a geographic, ethnic or cultural identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent around or beyond the Sindhu (Indus) River . By the 16th century CE, the term began to refer to residents of
10465-477: The sense of a follower of the Hindu religion". The poet Vidyapati 's Kirtilata (1380) uses the term Hindu in the sense of a religion, it contrasts the cultures of Hindus and Turks (Muslims) in a city and concludes "The Hindus and the Turks live close together; Each makes fun of the other's religion ( dhamme )." One of the earliest uses of word 'Hindu' in a religious context, in a European language (Spanish),
10580-443: The sense of non-Muslim Indians". However, scholars like Robert Fraser and Mary Hammond opine that Sikhism began initially as a militant sect of Hinduism and it got formally separated from Hinduism only in the 20th century. During the colonial era, the term Hindu had connotations of native religions of India, that is religions other than Christianity and Islam. In early colonial era Anglo-Hindu laws and British India court system,
10695-625: The subcontinent who were not Turkic or Muslims . Since ancient times, Hindu has been used to refer to people inhibiting region beyond the Sindhu river, therefore some assumptions that medieval Persian authors considered Hindu as derogatory is not accepted by practicing Hindus themselves as those references are much later to references used in pre-Islamic Persian sources, early Arab and Indian sources, all of them had positive connotation only as they either referred to region or followers of Hinduism. The historical development of Hindu self-identity within
10810-470: The term 'Hindu' retained its geographical reference initially: 'Indian', 'indigenous, local', virtually 'native'. Slowly, the Indian groups themselves started using the term, differentiating themselves and their "traditional ways" from those of the invaders. The text Prithviraj Raso , by Chand Bardai , about the 1192 CE defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan at the hands of Muhammad Ghori , is full of references to "Hindus" and "Turks", and at one stage, says "both
10925-408: The term Hindu referred to people of all Indian religions as well as two non-Indian religions: Judaism and Zoroastrianism. In the 20th century, personal laws were formulated for Hindus, and the term 'Hindu' in these colonial 'Hindu laws' applied to Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in addition to denominational Hindus. Beyond the stipulations of British colonial law, European orientalists and particularly
11040-505: The various beliefs. Among the earliest terms to emerge were Seeks and their College (later spelled Sikhs by Charles Wilkins), Boudhism (later spelled Buddhism), and in the 9th volume of Asiatick Researches report on religions in India, the term Jainism received notice. According to Pennington, the terms Hindu and Hinduism were thus constructed for colonial studies of India. The various sub-divisions and separation of subgroup terms were assumed to be result of "communal conflict", and Hindu
11155-456: The vernacular literature of Bhakti movement sants from 15th to 17th century, such as Kabir , Anantadas, Eknath, Vidyapati, suggests that distinct religious identities, between Hindus and Turks (Muslims), had formed during these centuries. The poetry of this period contrasts Hindu and Islamic identities, states Nicholson, and the literature vilifies the Muslims coupled with a "distinct sense of
11270-424: The wide range of traditions and ideas covered by the term Hinduism, arriving at a comprehensive definition is difficult. The religion "defies our desire to define and categorize it". A Hindu may, by his or her choice, draw upon ideas of other Indian or non-Indian religious thought as a resource, follow or evolve his or her personal beliefs, and still identify as a Hindu. In 1995, Chief Justice P. B. Gajendragadkar
11385-479: The world's third-largest religious group after Christians and Muslims. The vast majority of Hindus, approximately 966 million (94.3% of the global Hindu population), live in India , according to the 2011 Indian census. After India, the next nine countries with the largest Hindu populations are, in decreasing order: Nepal , Bangladesh , Indonesia , Pakistan , Sri Lanka , the United States , Malaysia ,
11500-564: The world. Most Hindus are found in Asian countries. The top twenty-five countries with the most Hindu residents and citizens (in decreasing order) are India , Nepal , Bangladesh , Indonesia , Pakistan , Sri Lanka , United States , Malaysia , Myanmar , United Kingdom , Mauritius , South Africa , United Arab Emirates , Canada , Australia , Saudi Arabia , Trinidad and Tobago , Singapore , Fiji , Qatar , Kuwait , Guyana , Bhutan , Oman and Yemen . The top fifteen countries with
11615-444: The youthful Merton loved jazz , but by the time he began his first teaching job he had forsaken all but peaceful music. Later in life, whenever he was permitted to leave Gethsemani for medical or monastic reasons, he would catch what live jazz he could, mainly in Louisville or New York. In April 1966, Merton underwent surgery to treat debilitating back pain. While recuperating in a Louisville hospital, he fell in love with Margie Smith,
11730-479: Was a monk in the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani , near Bardstown, Kentucky , living there from 1941 to his death. Merton wrote more than 50 books in a period of 27 years, mostly on spirituality , social justice , and pacifism , as well as scores of essays and reviews. Among Merton's most widely-read works is his bestselling autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain (1948). Merton became
11845-411: Was above all devoted to non-violence. He regarded his viewpoint as based on "simplicity" and expressed it as a Christian sensibility. His New Seeds of Contemplation was published in 1961. Merton finally achieved the solitude he had long desired while living in a hermitage on the monastery grounds in 1965. Over the years he had occasional battles with some of his abbots about not being allowed out of
11960-635: Was codified by Savarkar while he was a political prisoner of the British colonial authorities. Chris Bayly traces the roots of Hindu nationalism to the Hindu identity and political independence achieved by the Maratha confederacy , that overthrew the Islamic Mughal empire in large parts of India, allowing Hindus the freedom to pursue any of their diverse religious beliefs and restored Hindu holy places such as Varanasi. A few scholars view Hindu mobilisation and consequent nationalism to have emerged in
12075-664: Was constructed by these orientalists to imply people who adhered to "ancient default oppressive religious substratum of India", states Pennington. Followers of other Indian religions so identified were later referred Buddhists, Sikhs or Jains and distinguished from Hindus, in an antagonistic two-dimensional manner, with Hindus and Hinduism stereotyped as irrational traditional and others as rational reform religions. However, these mid-19th-century reports offered no indication of doctrinal or ritual differences between Hindu and Buddhist, or other newly constructed religious identities. These colonial studies, states Pennigton, "puzzled endlessly about
12190-478: Was deeply interested in what each said of the depth of human experience. He believed that for the most part, Christianity had forsaken its mystical tradition in favor of Cartesian emphasis on "the reification of concepts, idolization of the reflexive consciousness, flight from being into verbalism, mathematics, and rationalization." Merton was perhaps most interested in—and, of all of the Eastern traditions, wrote
12305-502: Was first exposed to and became interested in Eastern religions when he read Aldous Huxley 's Ends and Means in 1937, the year before his conversion to Catholicism . Throughout his life, he studied Buddhism , Confucianism , Taoism , Hinduism , Sikhism , Jainism , and Sufism in addition to his academic and monastic studies. While Merton was not interested in what these traditions had to offer as doctrines and institutions, he
12420-735: Was formerly named St. Joseph's Commercial and was founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph, is named in part after him. Some of Merton's manuscripts that include correspondence with his superiors are located in the library of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia . Antony Theodore has provided details of his encounters with Asian spiritual leaders and the influence of Confucianism , Taoism , Zen Buddhism and Hinduism on Merton's mysticism and philosophy of contemplation. Merton
12535-424: Was influenced by Aelred Graham's book Zen Catholicism of 1963. Merton also explored American Indian spirituality. He wrote a series of articles on American Indian history and spirituality for The Catholic Worker , The Center Magazine , Theoria to Theory , and Unicorn Journal . He explored themes such as American Indian fasting and missionary work. Merton's influence has grown since his death, and he
12650-435: Was later used occasionally in some Sanskrit texts such as the later Rajataranginis of Kashmir (Hinduka, c. 1450 ) and some 16th- to 18th-century Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava texts, including Chaitanya Charitamrita and Chaitanya Bhagavata . These texts used it to contrast Hindus from Muslims who are called Yavanas (foreigners) or Mlecchas (barbarians), with the 16th-century Chaitanya Charitamrita text and
12765-523: Was no autopsy , there was no suitable explanation for the wound in the back of Merton's head, "which had bled considerably." Arriving from the cottage next to Merton's, the Primate of the Benedictine order and presiding officer of the conference, Rembert Weakland , anointed Merton. His body was flown back to the United States on board a US military aircraft returning from Vietnam. He is buried at
12880-549: Was one of four Americans mentioned by Pope Francis in his speech to a joint meeting of the United States Congress on September 24, 2015. Francis said, "Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions." In 2023, Columbia University opened
12995-406: Was ordained as a subdeacon . From 1948 on, Merton identified himself as an anarchist . On January 5, 1949, Merton took a train to Louisville and applied for American citizenship. Published that year were Seeds of Contemplation , The Tears of Blind Lions , The Waters of Siloe , and the British edition of The Seven Storey Mountain under the title Elected Silence . On March 19, Merton became
13110-442: Was quoted in an Indian Supreme Court ruling: Although Hinduism contains a broad range of philosophies, Hindus share philosophical concepts, such as but not limiting to dharma , karma , kama , artha , moksha and samsara , even if each subscribes to a diversity of views. Hindus also have shared texts such as the Vedas with embedded Upanishads , and common ritual grammar ( Sanskara (rite of passage) ) such as rituals during
13225-407: Was the publication in 1649 by Sebastio Manrique . In the Indian historian DN Jha 's essay "Looking for a Hindu identity" , he writes: "No Indians described themselves as Hindus before the fourteenth century" and that "The British borrowed the word 'Hindu' from India, gave it a new meaning and significance, [and] reimported it into India as a reified phenomenon called Hinduism." In the 18th century,
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