This paper seeks to bring to the foreground the praxis of interreligious and intercultural dialogue through the arts in the field of Interreligious Studies. In particular, it looks at the unfolding of collaborative artistic offerings made by women from diverse cultures and faiths of Indonesia from 2000 to 2015 at the local level during cultural events held in Bali to the international level of the Parliament of the World’s Religions and the United Nations World Interfaith Harmony Week. By doing so, it hopes to show how the arts can embody the centuries-old principle of bhinneka tunggal ika (unity in diversity) today to support interreligious and intercultural dialogue, understanding and cooperation for world peace.

Balachaturbhadra Churna offers a multitude of health benefits for which it has become so poapular prescription by Kaumarbhritya practioners of Ayurveda. It is a combination of four drugs Musta, Pippali, Ativisha and Karkatashringi. This combination was first mentioned in Chakradatta and has been in practice since a millennium. Many queries have been raised on the usage of Aconite species of drugs recently, thus doubting the safety and efficacy of Balachaturbhadra Churna. Very few works have been published on Balachaturbhadra Churna till now. The aim of the present study was to compile and review such available references from classics and research works published on Balachaturbhadra Churna. Total five studies are published on Balachaturbhadra Churna, which revalidated the impact of classical guidelines. The research papers revealed standards of Quality Control and pharmacological efficacy of the drug. All the experimental studies revealed that Balachaturbhadra Churna is having no toxic hazards at very higher Dose levels, proving it safe for therapeutic use. Though certain limitations were observed in these researches, the results can be considered as a lead for further well stratified clinical studies.

When the final procession was readied at the Lingsar temple festival in 1988, I was surprised to see a leader of the Muslim Sasak faction, Suparman, holding hands with the leader of the Hindu Balinese assemblage, Anak Agung Gede Biarsah, at the front of the line of participants. In earlier conversations, they had both expressed interethnic distrust and proclaimed that their group held the inner position while the other was outer and insubstantial to festival events. And yet, there they were walking hand-in-hand and leading the final procession together as if there were no problems whatsoever. What I was witnessing – as I later realized – was the collapse of contestation into interethnic unity, and what produced this unity was the previous days’ rites and performing arts, which all worked in various ways to construct a bridge to the ancestors, impose a spiritual order and balance on the proceedings and participants, and form a comprehensive union that gradually became palpable. Ultimately, it is this union of complementary dualities (Sasak/Balinese, human/divine, inside/outside, even traditional/modern) that generates the fertility that legitimizes the festival. Though many elements have changed since the 1980s, the goal of union has not. Without it, the festival would either discontinue or radically transform.

Presently, pada gelahang marriages are still controversial within Balinese society in terms of their implementation and the implications. A certain percentage of Balinese approve of pada gelahang marriages, while a certain percentage of people disagree for various reasons. These pros and cons are not tolerated. In fact, the phenomenon of pada gelahang marriages is often confounding to the Hindu community in Bali. Hence, solutions are required. While pada gelahang marriages can be found in many districts and regions in Bali, however, many doubts and problems still arise in their philosophical and juridical foundations. Therefore, research on pada gelahang marriages from the perspective of legal pluralism needs to be done. This research is a qualitative research with a legal sociology approach. Primary data is derived from field data from observations and from the results of interviews of related parties, while secondary data is obtained from literature books using the theory of legal pluralism as a guiding theory in the discussion of research. The results of the study indicate that the pada gelahang marriage has a philosophical foundation, juridical foundation and sociological basis for the creation of values of justice, legal certainty and the benefit of law in the framework of legal pluralism that provides a way to meet Hindu religious law, traditional village customary law and state law to set pada gelahang marriages

In the context of a modern theory of images, the question has been raised how the discursive paradigm and the visual paradigm, or the linguistic turn and the visual turn, relate to each other in the social and cultural sciences. In other words, has the “culture as text” metaphor been replaced or only supplemented by the “culture as image” metaphor? Do the two metaphors exclude or complement each other (see also Bachmann-Medick 2006: 351)? This paper seek to answer these questions by drawing on ethnographic experiences from my research in Indonesia.

This paper argues that Asian religious traditions provide us with resources for alternative ethics and methodologies of resisting capitalist excesses and social-cultural intolerances towards more convivial and viable human futures. It draws inspiration from two major developments. First, the works of Prasenjit Duara (2015) and Joel S. Kahn (2015) that posit Asian religious traditions as resources for generating alternative ethics as well as contemplative and embodied ways of knowing that direct self and collective capacities to overcome environmental sustainability and social-cultural incompatibilities. Second, everyday politics of resisting religious bigotries in contemporary Malaysia that turn to spiritual traditions for mindful ways of minimizing, bridging or transcending irreducible ethno-religious differences.

This paper used the historical approach to overview the patterns and practices of religious pluralism in Thai context. The past research work on religious pluralism will be examined in order to find out what concepts and approaches have been used and how they could implement in reality. Most Thai people practice in Buddhism, and they do not have any conflicts with other Thai Muslims or Christian. They live peacefully and harmoniously in co-existence among different religious adherents. The case of Thai Buddhist and Thai Muslim live together happily in the Southern communities will be employed and discussed using social and cultural capital analytical approach. The factors and conditions concerning with religious pluralism are analyzed more in details. The applications of religious pluralism in the study to other Southeast Asian countries will also recommend.

This study examines cultural poverty in the lives of economically poor Hindus in Karangasem Regency. Poverty is a serious problem in Karangasem Regency, such that until the present time Karangasem Regency occupies the top position as the region with the highest number of poor people in Bali Province. Various efforts have been made to alleviate poverty but the difficulty of poverty reduction in Karangasem Regency is inseparable from the occurrence of cultural poverty, such as the values, attitudes, and behavior of the poor who are, in this case, predominantly Hindus. This article discusses some of the reasons for the occurrence, forms and implications of cultural poverty.

This work focuses on the role of Neo-Sufism practice and the ritual phenomenon of Slawatan in promoting religious tolerance, through the teaching of peace and social solidarity by four religious organizations and their leaders. Slawatan is a common practice in Sufism and Neo-Sufism. Evidence shows that early Sufism promoted interreligious tolerance and harmony, and co-existed with other religions, such as Hinduism, in Indonesia. The study adopts ritual theory and participants’ observation as a methodological framework. This paper argues that, the use of Neo-Sufism practice and the ritual phenomenon of Slawatan promote social solidarity which embodies the significance of religious tolerance in Central Java, Indonesia. The data also indicate that Slawatan and Neo-Sufism also have the potential to assist in the de-radicalisation and rehabilitation of religious extremists, as is evident in the work conducted by Pesantren Nur Hormain. The discussion confirms that Ahbabul Musthofa’s, Al Khidmah’s, Pesantren Nurul Haromain’s and Al Ukhuwwah’s peaceful approach to spiritual practice have promoted: social, political and educational activities among diverse communities, both in Central Java and outside Indonesia.