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The exploration of the psychological terrain of the Indian inner world begins by looking at the cluster of ideas, historically derived, selected, and refined, through which Hindu culture has traditionally structured the beliefs and behaviour of its members. This chapter deals with Hindu philosophy in prescriptive configuration of ideal purposes, values and beliefs which percolate down into the everyday life of the ordinary people and give it form and meaning. It tackles the theme of fusion—moksha; life task and life cycle—dharma; and ideas of time and destiny. As posited by Hindu culture, the ultimate aim of existence, the chief purushartha (man’s meaning), is moksha or mukti. In the Hindu philosophical tradition, dharma is the central concept of Mimamsa, the intensely activist philosophy of the first two parts of the Vedas. The third essential idea in the Hindu world image is karma.

This chapter argues that (1) the Azusa Street revival in the USA and the Mukti revival in India were part of a wider series of revivals and had equal significance in the early promotion of Pentecostal beliefs and values throughout the world; (2) existing missionary networks, especially that of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, were fundamental in spreading Pentecostalism internationally; (3) Pentecostal periodicals that were posted to missionaries in the “field” were not only significant in spreading Pentecostalism internationally but were the foundation of the meta-culture that arose in global Pentecostalism in its earliest forms; and (4) the various centers and events in early Pentecostalism were part of a series of formative stages in the emergence of a new missionary movement that took several years to take on a distinctive identity. In conclusion, Anderson argues that Pentecostalism has always been a movement with global orientation and inherent migrating tendencies that, coupled with its strong individualism, made it fundamentally a multidimensional missionary movement.

This chapter focuses on the important contributions of women to the initial establishment and growth of global Pentecostalism. The first part of the chapter outlines the role of key women at the Azusa Street Revival and how they launched out from Los Angeles to touch most corners of the globe. Following the brief background related to women at Azusa Street, the chapter surveys the lives and ministries of eleven women missionaries, evangelists and teachers from very different spheres. Some of these women were contemporary with Azusa Street, yet had little knowledge of that revival, while others came on the scene at a later period. Regardless, all shared a sense that they were a part of the same source of Pentecostal spirituality and constructed ministries that dynamically engaged the empowerment of their experience of Pentecostal Spirit baptism and were able to maintain control of those ministries despite pressures from men and organizational structures.

This chapter describes the alliances between the Pakistani state and nonstate actors during the 1971 counterinsurgency campaign in the country’s eastern wing. The Pakistani army enlisted the help of nonstate allies to tilt the local balance of power in its favor, but only when it was able to satisfy their varied interests. Thousands of Razakars (civilian “volunteers”) joined the counterinsurgency because of the patronage and protection the state was able to offer once it regained some footing in the region. The activists, notably the members of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s youth wing comprising the al-Badr Brigade, became allies only after the Pakistani army built robust links with Islamist organizations and made a credible commitment to the Islamist agenda. In September 1971, even though Pakistan was clearly losing the war to the insurgents (and India), the activists created a death squad targeting high-profile supporters and sympathizers of the secessionist movement.

This chapter argues that the failure of the ‘new nationalism’ of the earlier era meant that both the unitary nation and its oppositional forces of difference began to be hardened. The contestations on nation and its constituent different identities took a bitter turn around the questions of separate representation. However, although the ‘communal’ mentality gained its strength, the ‘communitarian’ sensibilities kept itself alive enough to represent a regional identity. The new constitutional provisions opened up new possibilities of linking up these less extreme trends of the region. In the cultural realm, the Bengali Muslim voices of the Shikha–Saogat groups and the Buddhir Mukti activists, and in the political realm, the praja movements and the rise of Krishak Praja Party were cases in point. In the end, the forces of inter-community negotiation survived the social and political disharmony, and even made new inroads into the regional politics of Bengal.

This chapter points to the ‘pluralization of the lifeworld’ involved in globalization as a key context for changing dissenting spiritualities through the twentieth century. These have included a remarkable upsurge in Spirit-movements that fall under categories such as Pentecostal, charismatic, neo-charismatic, ‘renewalist’, and indigenous Churches. Spirit language is not only adaptive to globalized settings, but brings with it eschatological assumptions. New spiritualities emerge to disrupt existing assumptions with prophetic and often critical voices that condemn aspects of the existing culture, state, and church life. This chapter outlines this process of disruption of the mainstream in case studies drawn from the USA, the UK, India, Africa, and Indonesia, where charismaticized Christianity has emerged and grown strongly in often quite resistant broader cultures.

This chapter presents an excerpt from Rabindranath Tagore’s “Pathway to Mukti,” an address he delivered in 1925 as President of the Indian Philosophical Congress. Tagore was a prolific and accomplished poet, novelist, and playwright, and is perhaps best known for his literary output, a massive corpus comprising impressive writing in both Bengali and English. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his Gitānjali, a cycle of prose poems. Tagore was also a prominent educator, founding Visva Bharati University at Shantiniketan, a university noted for its internationalism and strength in the arts, and now a leading university in India. In his presidential address, Tagore explores the role of philosophy in Indian culture. He considers the link between poetry and philosophy by citing the epic Mahābhārata as an example. Finally, he expounds on the idea of mukti, or freedom, and argues that in India it mean freedom from ignorance, resulting in enlightenment.