Temple Of God Research Articles

Destroying God's Temple? Physical Inactivity, Poor Diet, Obesity, and Other "Sin" Behaviors.

On average, our participants (N=112), who self-proclaimed to be Christians, believed that physically inactive lifestyles, unhealthy eating, overeating, and being obese destroy the body, God's temple. However, these beliefs were less definitive, than those of other common "sin" behaviors, such as drug use, smoking, and excessive drinking of alcohol. In addition, destroying the body with physical inactivity or poor diet was not necessarily viewed as sinful. Subsequently, these beliefs did not relate to self-reported physical activity, dietary behavior, or body mass index. It is possible that inactivity, poor dietary habits, and obesity are not internalized into the spiritual perspective as destroying the body, God's temple, in the same way as other "sin" behaviors.

Assessing the Relationship Between Religious Involvement and Health Behaviors.

A growing body of research suggests that people who are more deeply involved in religion may be more likely to adopt beneficial health behaviors. However, religion is a complex phenomenon, and as a result, religion may affect health behaviors in a number of ways. The purpose of the current study was to see whether a sacred view of the body (i.e., belief that the body is the temple of God) is associated with better health behavior. It was proposed that the relationship between a sacred body view and health behavior will emerge only among study participants who have a stronger sense of religiously oriented control (i.e., stronger God-mediated control beliefs). Five positive health behaviors were evaluated: more frequent strenuous exercise, more frequent moderate exercise, more frequent consumption of fruits and vegetables, higher quality sleep, and the adoption of healthy lifestyles. Data from a recent nationwide sample reveal that a sacred body view is associated with each health behavior, but only among study participants who have a strong religiously oriented sense of control.

“A Convenient Seat in God's Temple”: The Massachusetts General Colored Association and the Park Street Church Pew Controversy of 1830

The Massachusetts General Colored Association was the most advanced black civil rights organization of its day. In 1830, the MGCA backed a protest against segregated pews in Boston s Park Street Church, an event that provided a crucial opening for the alliance between black abolitionists and William Lloyd Garrison s New England Anti Slavery Society.

Godność ciała ludzkiego według Tertuliana. Analiza komentarzy do tekstów Rdz 1, 26-27; 2, 8; 1Kor 3, 16

The present paper discusses the dignity of human body as treated in selected texts from Tertullian’s De resurrectione mortuorum and Adversus Marcionem. Because Tertullian argues primarily on the basis of Sacred Scripture, special con­sideration will be given to his exegesis of Genesis 1: 26-27 and 2: 8. Tertullian demonstrates that the creation of the human body is the direct work of God who creates it, precisely with the future Incarnation of his beloved Son already in mind. Tertullian describes, against Marcion, the dignity of the human body as ensuing from the gift of freedom which man received from God at the act of creation. The human body is the instrument through which man receives spiritual gifts. We therefore can call it the „foundation of salvation”. In his polemic against the fol­lowers of Plato and the gnostics, Tertullian demonstrates that the human body and the entire „man” is called to be a temple of God (cf. 1Cor 3: 16).

The Shifting Balance of Power in the City God Temples, Late Qing to 1937

The City God temples 城隍廟 occupied a particular place in the socio-religious organization of late imperial China. They were state-mandated shrines under the control of local officials, but also housed a large variety of local religious organizations. There was cooperation between such organizations in staging festivals, but also tensions about control over temple resources and management. These tensions evolved during the late Qing and the Republican period, as political and social change empowered certain actors and weakened others, thus affecting temple life and activities. The article first presents the various actors that played a role in managing and running a City God temple, what type of religiosity they invested in it, and how they shared its space. It then examines two moments of change in this sharing of the common temple space, namely the post-Taiping reorganization of local society, and the post-1898 policies to build a nation-state.

Taoism ed. by Mou Zhongjian (review)

part of the state cult, while the discussion of the Five Prohibitions, which were largely concerned with protecting private property, was not Confucian either (pp. 189, 198). Rituals at local god temples (as described on pp. 205–206), in which lisheng participated, also were not Confucian. Finally, I do not think that Liu has proven that ‘‘the promotion of Confucian rituals in the countryside greatly transformed rural social structures and local popular culture.’’ What he does show is that major social and institutional changes in rural Sibao were accompanied by the appropriate rituals, Confucian and non-Confucian. Despite these flaws the book is valuable for calling attention to the indispensable role of ritual in the countryside, for highlighting the importance of the lisheng, for introducing us to the Shangbao community compact, and for providing a rich picture of the deep changes that were taking place in rural western Fujian from the mid-Ming on. DAVID JOHNSON University of California, Berkeley MOU ZHONGJIAN, ed., Taoism. Translated by PAN JUNLIANG and SIMONE NORMAND. Religious Studies in Contemporary China Collection, vol. 2. Leiden: Brill, 2012. vi, 395 pp. J133, US$182 (hb). ISBN 978-90-04-17453-5 This book contains seventeen articles selected and translated into English from the original Dangdai Zhongguo zongjiao yanjiu jingxuan congshu, Daojiao juan with a new introduction by Vincent Goossaert.1 It is a volume that aims at ‘‘showcasing representative works of Taoist studies in mainland China’’ (p. 1). The articles are rearranged from the Chinese edition. The first two chapters, by Qing Xitai 卿希泰 and Wang Ka 王卡 respectively, offer a survey of the state of the field (up to AD 2002) and of primary sources, including the recent monumental Taoist Canon of China (Zhonghua Daozang 中華道藏).2 The following nine articles are arranged in a loose chronological order, based on the periods concerned: from the Eastern Han to the Qing dynasty. Among them, the first five articles concern pre-Song Daoism: the Excerpt from the Scripture of Great Peace, the legend of Laozi 老子 converting the barbarians, Cao Cao 曹操, the SixHeavens cosmology, and the Twofold Mystery studies of Tang times. They precede four articles about Song and later times: two on Inner Alchemy and two on Quanzhen 全真 Daoism. The remaining six articles are thematic: three are on ethics (environmentalism, life protection, and morality books), one on medicine, and two on ritual. Although the book’s time period starts with the Eastern Han, pre-Qin Daoist philosophers are by no means left out. Many of the articles discuss the relationship between religious Daoism (daojiao 道教) and philosophical Daoism (daojia 道家) that was established in pre-Qin times, taking the stand that the two complement each other. Hong Xiuping 洪修平 suggests that religious Daoism based its theories 1 Mou Zhongjian 牟鐘鑒, Dangdai Zhongguo zongjiao yanjiu jingxuan congshu. Daojiao juan 當代中國宗教研究精選叢書, 道教卷 (Beijing: Minzu chubanshe 民族出版社, 2008). 2 Zhang Jiyu 張繼禹 comp., Zhonghua daozang 中華道藏 (Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe 華夏 出版社, 2004). BOOK REVIEWS 237 and practices on ‘‘attaining transcendence,’’ which is a core principle in the Laozi. Tang Yijie 湯一介 notes the contributions to Daoist philosophy from religious figures by exploring the ‘‘Twofold Mystery study’’ (Chongxuan xue 重玄學) of the eminent Cheng Xuanying 成玄英, an ordained Daoist priest active in the 7th century. The Twofold Mystery studies, as Tang evaluates them, are the third stage of the evolution of Daoist philosophy, and the theoretical foundation on which the ‘‘study of nature in Taoist inner alchemy’’3 eventually would be built (p. 175). Zhang Guangbao 張廣保 shows that Inner Alchemy’s goal of ‘‘communion of the Tao and Life’’ (shengdao heyi 生道合一) on both spiritual and physical levels was shared by pre-Qin Daoist philosophers. Concepts such as obtaining longevity and immortality from the realization of the Dao, and cultivating jing 精 and qi 氣 as an essential method to that realization are already found in the Zhuangzi 莊子, among other texts of philosophical Daoism. In discussing the concept of ‘‘follow and oppose’’ (shunni 順逆), Ge Guolong 戈國龍 argues that the Inner Alchemy practices based on the principle of ‘‘follow and oppose’’ were meant to enable practitioners to ‘‘return to the origin’’ by following the Dao and reverse (i.e. ‘‘oppose’’) the bodily degeneration process caused by socialization and materialization . The Daoist goal of ‘‘returning to the origin’’ was established by philosophical Daoism at...

Wymagania teologiczne odnośnie do miejsca celebracji liturgicznej

Talking about music in a sacral space is without doubt necessary to look deeply into the meaning of church building itself. Purpose for which is serving, formats its structure and equipment. In the article reflection was founded on the testimony of christian community of the first centuries and on the texts in the present Pontifical, which is used during dedication of the church and the altar. Christians in the first centuries during designing of the churches distains themselves from pagan buildings and also from the Temple in Jerusalem. They emphasize the spiritual side of their worship. They needed only the building where they could meet together, because the community was the real temple of God. So they gather simply very often in a bigger house or sometimes in a synagogue.The building of the church in a landscape of the towns and villages is undoubtedly the sign. It says by itself about unceasing God’s care for human being. The mystery of Incarnation is the base of the truth that God reveals Himself in a creation. That’s why for believers, although not only, it is the place of the presence of God who saved man. The community lives by celebrating, and they are hold in the church. Church becomes the sign of close relation between God and man.Today is required that the church building should have all what is necessary for celebration. Only that building can be blessed and serve for christian cult. The most important elements of equipment are altar, pulpit and place for leading. It is also necessary to notice and have the proper place for organ, choir and acoustic. Undoubtedly the mark of the church should be inert noble beauty.The sanctity of the church building depends on mystery of the presence of God in certain place. Through holding in it the sacred rites it becomes holy but it can lose holiness if it is used for different purpose.

Turning Gwer Sa La Festival into Intangible Cultural Heritage: State Superscription of Popular Religion in Southwest China

The Gwer Sa La Festival of the Bai in southwest China was recently announced as a national Intangible Cultural Heritage Project and nominated for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation world ICH candidacy, largely due to the local government’s promotion of Gwer Sa La’s religiosity by constructing and materialising the rhetoric of survival by a primitive fertility cult and ethnic carnival. However, the key concern of the participants is Gwer Sa La’s potency of prosperity, related to a series of encompassing powers vested in the patron god temples, taken care of by women congregations who renew the power of prosperity during the Festival. It is argued here that the state’s efforts to turn Gwer Sa La into an ICH project is an attempt of “superscription without encompassment”. The efforts are based on an imagined, primitive fertility cult that leads to sexual promiscuity and which entirely overlooks the locals’ concerns.

Titíes, mundinovos y purichinelas en una mojiganga inédita de Antonio de Zamora: estudio y edición

This paper is an analyisis, annotation and edition of the Mojiganga del mundinovo (‘The raree show, a carnival play’) by Antonio de Zamora. The play was performed in 1698 Madrid by the troupe of Carlos Vallejo, along with the sacramental one-act play El templo vivo de Dios (‘The living temple of God’). The hitherto unpublished text is based on the only two extant manuscripts, located in archives in Madrid. Despite the play’s title, my analysis argues that the novelty in this play is not so much the raree show, a contraption popularized four decades earlier in Golden Age theater, as the marmosets. The death of two marmosets and the ensuing desolation of their owner, Ms. Estupenda, both trigger the play and provide it with a plot. The marmosets, too, point to a changing mentality in late 17th-century society, regarding the possession among ladies of marmosets and other monkeys as pets.

Devotional Poetry and the Temple of God

Devotional Poetry and the Temple of God

Latino Church Leaders' Perspectives on Childhood Obesity Prevention

The prevalence of obesity among Latino children is an increasing concern. Churches are settings that a majority of Latino families frequent on a regular basis. In addition to religious worship, churches supply social, emotional, and material support. Therefore, churches may be promising venues for obesity-prevention interventions engaging families and communities. To qualitatively examine Latino church leaders' perspectives on childhood obesity and insights on obesity-prevention programming in faith-based community settings in South Texas. In-depth interviews were conducted between 2009 and 2011 with a purposive sample of 35 Latino church leaders from 18 churches in San Antonio, Texas. Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Inductive analysis was performed to identify themes. The results revealed that participants were knowledgeable about the severity and health consequences of childhood obesity, and the extent to which it was affecting members of their congregations. Participants discussed the interconnection between one's faith and health (i.e., one's body as "God's Temple"). They suggested that churches could serve as a conduit for obesity-prevention programs that offer faith-oriented health education, cooking classes, and fun physical activity opportunities for both parents and children. This study reveals the strong potential of faith-based communities to serve as an intervention setting with the needed infrastructure for implementing effective obesity-prevention strategies.

Sacred Liturgy and Asceticism: Respect for the Ius Divinum

Sacred Liturgy and Asceticism: Respect for the Ius Divinum1 Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke Introduction First of all, I express my heartfelt gratitude to Father Paul J. Keller, O.P., President of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, for the invitation to address the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Society. In accepting the invitation, it was my desire to encourage you as a scholarly and professional association devoted to promoting the Sacred Liturgy, the highest and most perfect expression of our life in Christ in the Church, especially through your attention to an interdisciplinary approach which respects the integral elements of divine worship: language and gesture, music, art and architecture, vesture, vessels and linens. In a particular way, I urge you, in accord with the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI on the Sacred Liturgy, to continue your promotion of the beauty that must necessarily mark every aspect of divine worship. Fittingly, during the 2012 Annual Meeting, you have chosen to address the subject of asceticism and the Sacred Liturgy. The term “asceticism”, derived from the Greek term askesis for the exercise necessary to achieve athletic or gymnastic excellence, has from the time of the Greek Fathers, in the words of Louis Bouyer, “come to designate the effort a Christian must exercise in the battle waged against those things, both from within himself and from without, that oppose the realization of the ideal of Christian perfection as proposed in the Sermon on the Mount.”2 Such spiritual exercise 1 Keynote Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Catholic Liturgy in St Louis, Missouri, on 28 January 2012. 2 “L’ascèse ... en et venue à désigner tous les efforts auxquels doit s’exercer le chrétien, dans cette lutte qu’il doit mener contre ce qui, en lui ou en dehors de lui, s’oppose à la réalisation de l’idéal de la perfection chrétienne proposé dans le Sermon sur la montagne.” Louis Bouyer, “Ascèse, ascétique et ascétisme,” Dictionnaire Théologique (Tournai: Desclée & Co., 1963) 80. [Hereafter, DT] English version: Louis Bouyer, Dictionary of Theology, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (Tournai: Desclée Antiphon 17.1 (2013): 3-30 4 RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE is not seen as the fruit of human effort alone as opposed to the action of divine grace, according to a Pelagian view, or even as complementary to divine grace, according to a semi-Pelagian view, but, rather, is seen to depend completely upon divine grace. It is, in fact, divine grace that inspires or prompts ascetical activity as the fitting response of man to God.3 If every dimension of our life in Christ demands asceticism, so that Christ’s life within us, divine grace, may produce its fruit, then, above all, asceticism is necessary if we are to “worship in spirit and truth.”4 As the history of the liturgical reform following the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council has so strikingly demonstrated, a lack of attention to the discipline required for true worship deforms what should be worship of God into a man-made and man-centered activity. Pope Paul VI, in his homily on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul in 1972, reflecting upon the situation of the Church in the world, spoke of his sense that “through some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered into the temple of God.”5 He spoke of a pervasive doubt, uncertainty, restlessness, dissatisfaction and dissent, and of a loss of trust in the Church, coupled with a ready placement of trust in secular prophets who speak through the press or social movements, seeking from them the formula for a true life.6 He noted how, even within the Church, the state of uncertainty prevailed, observing that after the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council it was believed that “a day of sunlight had dawned upon the Church,” while, in fact, “a day of clouds, storms, darkness, wandering and uncertainty” had arrived.7 He commented that we seek to dig the abysses deeper rather than to fill them.8 & Co., 1965) 42. [Hereafter, DTEng]. 3 See DT, 80–82. English version: DTEng 42–43. 4 Jn 4:24. 5 “... da qualche fessura sia entrato il...

Stephanie K. Soyles Jarkins. Aphrahat the Persian Sage and the Temple of God. A Study of Early Syriac Anthropology

Stephanie K. Soyles Jarkins. Aphrahat the Persian Sage and the Temple of God. A Study of Early Syriac Anthropology

“What agreement has the temple of God with idols?” Christian homilies, ancient myths, and the “Macedonian Renaissance”

A study of the extensive corpus of around 200 Greek homilies dating from the late ninth to the end of the tenth century has revealed a clear trend in Byzantine homiletics, which has practically escaped attention so far: references to Ancient Greek myths in the form of exempla occur in roughly one tenth of them. All of this material is presented in detail and analyzed in the article. Moreover, this paradoxical phenomenon of incorporating pagan material in religious works that were read out in church is accounted for by appealing to a number of factors, including the influence of Gregory of Nazianzus’ and Photius’ examples on the homilists involved, the flourishing of rhetoric in the era of the “revival of learning”, and the classicizing spirit of the “Macedonian renaissance”. While the use of myths did not imply acceptance of their ethics, a special fondness of erotic myths makes its appearance. The trend under discussion here emerges as a literary counterpart to classicism in the art of the tenth century.

Daoist Temples in Modern City Life: The Singapore City God Temple

This paper is a case study of a the City God Temple in Singapore, examining how a traditional Chinese temple has adjusted and created a new, Daoist identity to keep pace with the social changes and development of a modern city. Chinese religion first arrived in Singapore with immigrants from southeast China shortly after the city was first discovered and colonized by the British in 1819. Their practitioners remained closely connected to their original places, perpetuating their deep memories and unique cultural characteristics. In recent decades, as both society and city have changed to keep pace with modernity, the temples had to find ways to balance traditional culture and modern life. The City God Temple is an example of a successful adaptation to social change by moving beyond traditional social structures into new management modes and by overcoming the multi-sectarian patterns of Chinese religiosity and creating a firm Daoist identity. In this study, I examine this process from three main perspectives: historical background, approaches to management, and religious identity.

The Sanctification of the Body and Behavioral Health Patterns of College Students

This study applies the construct of sanctification to college students' perceptions of their bodies. Students (N = 289) completed measures on the extent to which they viewed their bodies as being a manifestation of God (e.g., My body is a temple of God) and as characterized by sacred qualities (e.g., holy, blessed, sacred). Greater levels of both forms of sanctification were related to higher levels of health-protective behaviors, strenuous exercise, satisfaction with one's body, and disapproval of alcohol consumption as well as to lower levels of illicit drug use, unhealthy eating practices, and alcohol consumption. Viewing the body as having sacred qualities was also related to lower rates of binge eating and illicit drug use.

COMMUNAL RELIGION IN JIANGNAN DELTA RURAL VILLAGES IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA

This article addresses the broad question of the sense of community in traditional Chinese villages, through consideration of popular cults found throughout the most highly developed region in Late Imperial China: the Jiangnan Delta. A key clue is a large-scale tenant-farmer revolt in Zhaowen County in 1846. When the uprising was suppressed, not only were twenty human ringleaders executed, but images of four local gods from village temples, who were believed to have sanctioned the rebellion, were also seized by the authorities and exposed for one year at the gates of the Zhaowen County City God temple. All four had three characteristics in common: (1) they were anthropomorphic, with human names; (2) they had living descendants of the same surname; (3) all were associated with stories involving miraculous protection of tax grain transport to the North. The descendants of these gods, all possession-type spirit mediums, or shamans, based in the villages, created the gods in response to the needs of their clients, large-scale landlords who bore responsibility for sea transport of tax grain to the North. In the mid-sixteenth century, fundamental socio-economic changes took place in the Jiangnan Delta. The landlords disappeared from the villages, leaving only the farmers, who were turning to cottage industries for cash to supplement inadequate food crop yields. The spirit mediums responded to the changes and modified their gods for a new set of clients, resulting in the survival of these cults down to the present day.

Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley, Tears from iron: cultural responses to famine in nineteenth-century China, Berkeley and London, University of California Press, 2008, pp. xxiii, 332, £23.95, $39.95 (hardback 978-0-520-25302-5).

How is it possible to speak about the unspeakable? How can historians write about thoroughly disturbing historical experiences? How can we find the appropriate balance between empathy with those having to make impossible choices and the need to keep an analytical distance from the events, the sources and the people we are studying? The dearth of studies on one of the most lethal famines in China’s history that caused, directly or indirectly, the death of an estimated 9 to 13 million people, suggests that there is no easy answer to these questions. Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley, inspired by studies on the Irish Famine of the 1840s, is perhaps the first author to have approached the North China famine of 1876–79 in its entire ambiguity and multi-dimensional complexity—a task that only became feasible by focusing explicitly on “cultural responses” to the famine rather than on writing its social or economic history. The first two chapters of this book provide a succinct introduction to the historical setting and the experience of the famine in southern Shanxi, which was one of the worst hit regions. The description of the local famine experience draws largely on a ‘Famine Song’ belonging to the folk tradition, an extraordinary document preserved both in a manuscript version dating to the 1890s and an interestingly edited version published in 1986. Then she shifts to an analysis of the different responses to the famine. This part includes four chapters dealing with the local, official, outside (i.e. western) and Jiangnan (i.e. southern elites) responses and the various ways they coped with, understood, and explained the famine in its local, national and international context (“from Suzhou to London via Shanghai”). The wealth of detail presented here shows nicely how these partly overlapping perspectives in themselves actually include many ambiguities, as for example the irreconcilable representations of the famine commissioner Yan Jingming, who is portrayed as a cruel slaughterer of rebellious salt workers in an orally transmitted folk story, but as a conscientious relief worker in the written tradition. At the same time the local ‘Famine Song’, purportedly stemming from the folk tradition, also supports the view that the government had the best intentions and did what was possible against all the odds, and, perhaps even more surprisingly, we learn that even today Yan Jingming’s story still causes heated debates among Shanxi villagers. In the last part of the study the existential meaning of the famine experience is epitomized in what the author calls “icons of starvation”, from the female sacrifice required by Confucian family values, to the “feminization of the nation” (to save the women is to save the nation) and the metaphorical reading of the descriptions of cannibalism. Even though the significance of these signs is different at the different levels of analysis, it is striking that at all levels the foremost way to deal with the unspeakable was to turn it into moralizing accounts. These were located in very different discourses, ranging from the wrath of heaven at human greed and vice—a view that was shared by all, from the Shanxi villager to the foreign missionary—to the Chinese rejection of the blessings of industrial modernity (railways). “Famine was the antithesis of progress” (p. 130). Again, in this context the reader is surprised to learn that it is the alleged “conservatives” who ask for the use of foreign loans for famine relief, whereas the modernizers seem to be more concerned about funding their armies. The book provides many insights into the intricacies of late Qing politics, but its main concerns are the different ways in which the famine was turned into stories that could be told so as to find meaning in this harrowing experience and draw some lessons from it: how to “never forget” (p. 74), but also how to create “a psychologically tolerable past” and how to cope with the “survivor’s guilt” (p. 54). But it is also about how to use folk stories and oral history materials in a historical study that deals with events that reach back nearly one and a half centuries. How far does living memory reach, and how should we read accounts that were put into writing at very different times under very specific historical circumstances. The tourist spectacle offered in the World Heritage city of Pingyao showing the magistrate performing a rain ritual at the City God Temple perhaps contributes little to the historical meaning of the famine, but it tells us a lot about the uses of history in contemporary Chinese society. The result of this fascinating inquiry is a highly readable but also shocking account of one of the most crucial historical events in late-nineteenth-century Chinese history.

Did AIDS viruses originate in India?

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the infectious agent of AIDS, is believed to have originated in non-human primates in sub Saharan Africa. The first case of HIV infection as well as first case of AIDS was reported in India 1986. Presently HIV infections were identified in 104 districts spread all over India including forest areas. The first case of HIV infection as well as first case of AIDS was reported in India 1986. Data from sentinel surveillance and national family health survey III in year 2005-6 revealed that 2-3.1 million people were living with HIV/AIDS in India in year 2006. Presently HIV infections were identified in 104 districts spread all over India including forest areas. Medical, archaeological, mythological, biological evidences point out the possibility of origin of AIDS in Indian sub continent. The man and monkey association started in India by Paleolithic period. We can find monkey paintings in various historic sites in Hindu, Buddhist literature. Monkey Gods are very common all over India, tribal and rural people built monkey god temples and preached. Many sculptures from 300 BC to 12th century AD depicted the monkey-man association. It is also depicted that the monkeys are giving medicine to the king that strengthens monkey-man association from many thousand years. In ancient Indian medicine, like Charaka Samhita (300 BC) AZOKSHYAM (degradation of immunity) an AIDS like disease was narrated. Many of the archaeological sites of period between 3000 BC to 1000 in India were displaced due to various viral diseases. Archaeological reports reveal that massive deaths occurred in those areas. In Indian culture there has been a long tradition of keeping the non human primates as pets (or) performance animals, animal markets and zoos. Indian primates are primarily captured (or) produced for various reasons i.e. biomedical research, pets, private collection, folklore medicine and food. Monkeys are sold in weekly markets India Many parts of India monkey skulls are used for witchcraft and black magic, skin used for drum making. In folklore and tribal medicine, patients are made to drink live monkey blood (Chakmas and Riangs tribes) and cat brain, for curing Asthma, fever, body ache, and abnormal blood pressure and some times for gallstones. The consumption of primate meat by certain tribal and non tribal communities is still prevalent in north east and eastern India. The use of meat from hunted primates as a bait to agricultural pests is also common in the north eastern states. Portuguese and other colonial traders transported monkeys for folklore medicines. A few of these Indian monkeys were found to be serologically and virologically positive to simian retroviruses. Assamese Macaque (Macaca assamensis) harboured SFV (simian foamy virus) and HMS 50, pigtailed macaque (Macaque nemestrins) SFV-Hem-2 strain and Rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) SMV-BGH-4. Natural infection by simian retrovirus (SRV-6) in hanuman languor(Semnopithecus entellus) traced in two different geographical regions of India. Natural infection by simian retrovirus (SRV-6) in hanuman languor (Semnopithecus entellus) traced in two different geographical regions of India. Analysis of HIV-1 subtype C and HIV 2 genome sequences from India showed that these sequences were closely related to each other and phylogentic analysis of these sequences clustered together and showed monophyletic lineage. Origin of AIDS in Indian peninsular should be investigated for SIV s in wild monkeys of India.

Commentary on Paley J (2008) Spirituality and secularization: nursing and the sociology of religion. Journal of Clinical Nursing17, 175–186

included study Cortazzi et al. (2001) reported on the use of both incidental, anecdotal and formal peer teaching and learning strategies, as reported in the outcomes ‘Narratives mediate learning by re-telling experience, students learn by reflection’ (Secomb 2008). In health science education literature many learning outcomes are self reported, peer evaluated, client reported or clinician evaluated, therefore level of evidence is considered but not central to the investigation (Secomb 2008). The inclusion of this type of information can highlight significant factors and further research responsibilities and possibilities (Secomb 2008), but the research design needs to clear (Altman 2002), and the meaning contextualised within existing literature, and evaluation and inclusion strategies outlined. As with this review, not all the outcomes discussed in the main text as relevant to the research question made the final reporting, in Table 2 ‘The significant findings for clinical practice from this systematic review of literature’ (Secomb 2008). When it became evident that statistical meta-analysis was unachievable, a meta-synthesis which provided consistency and comparability between studies their designs and results was used. Jacinta Secomb PhD candidate University of South Australia E-mail: secomb@chariot.net.au