Ascribing a precise definition to religion has been a challenge to scholars, as it is immensely complex.

The definitions given so far are either too vague or too specific, if not too cumbersome. It is reasonable to make an inclusive analysis of the essential features of religion to arrive at a formal summary description of religion. In this part of the book, Vision, Tradition, Interpretation by Dr. Eric J. Lott, Pages 15 to37, religion is described by studying various dimensions of main-stream religious traditions and also of primal traditions practiced in Indian sub-continent. 1. The Ritual Dimension: Rituals are repeated cultic acts by which a tradition is transmitted and continually re-established, and by which that traditions adherents participate in its life. The similarity of these rituals in many religions can not mean to have the same significance in all religions. The significance of a ritual changes from time to time as it happened in the most ritualistic religion, the Hinduism. There were bhakti devotional movements in history for the re-formation of The Orthodox Brahmanic Hinduism. Though the deep veneration for the traditional ancient sacred places and symbols is not effected in the process of ritual transition from vedic to more indigenous sacred traditions, the intention and goal of rituals have changed. The functional character of rituals, the life-enabling and human well-being, may not be taken as their primary orientation, as there are other types of life-enhancing rituals developed in primal religious communities to withstand the crisis and getting used to larger dimensions of life. Some crisis-type rituals are meant to achieve harmony with environment and appeasement with sacred powers of earth for intruding into its natural setup. Other rituals are meant to attain transcendence over the nature through union with sacred power. The rituals might not always be just functional but also include sacred dimension as seen in some primal traditions in which rituals are meant only for enhancement of sacred Power of Presence. Rites of initiation engage in the goal of life enhancing natural transitional stages in human life and are part of the process in various stages of attaining the Supreme Goal by a certain means. This is seen in most religious traditions like the sacred thread ritual in Hinduism, Baptism in Christianity indicating the entry into sacramental life of community. In vedic tradition, life sacraments were more important in orthodox twice-born hindu family and great sacrifices were offered to deities as a part of ritual act. However the sacred rituals were more significant than the great deities as it was believed that the rituals have power to fulfill the desires of the participants. This vedic sacrifices eventually displaced by temple worship-service (puja) to the idols of deities with a particular power and to gain darsana (vision) became the primary aim. Rituals are also performed as an act of purification from various kinds of pollution in Indian society. Thus rituals become a central feature of religious life.

2. The Mythical Dimension: Myth is closely related to ritual, making it more meaningful by narration of sacred drama and thus relates the participants to it. Mythic dimension is a kind of primal theology, where a mythical story is interpreted in different ways in order to communicate a contextual meaning thus leading to an understanding of moral enhancement; in the process the myths may lose their primary meaning and also there is a possibility of narrating myths of one tradition in another, with a different intent. Thus no single primal meaning can be appended to any primal myths. Myths are often stories about figures, gods, heroes, demons etc. by reciting such myths a participant relates to ones own life. Myth telling involves a certain world-view, sometimes even of its mythic counter parts resulting in a fusion. The newly evolved religious movements incorporate certain mythical traditions of a tradition or system that was rejected with a new intension ascribed, thus a re-structuring takes place with a new world-view. As proposed by Max Muller, myth was termed to be a distortion of the sense of Infinite transposed to erroneous personification of each natural power, which was also taught by Greeks as distorted form of truth, but in vedic vision it became intrinsic. There is an argument that scripture should be included along with mythical dimension, as scripture plays a similar role in literate traditions as myth in pre-literate traditions. The scripture also usually has a substantial portion of mythical dimension of that tradition. In Hinduism, the hearing of the sacred mantra is believed to be an oral transmission of sacred word for a common person. 3. The Doctrinal dimension: The doctrinal dimension of a tradition is evolved from its intent to interpret the significance and prominence of a ritual or a myth for a better cognizance of a tradition, thus acquiring a doctrinal form. The traditions doctrines are schematized differently and are of minimal consideration in primal religions. But in a more sophisticated form, the doctrines are overlooked to be pure philosophies. In fact these philosophies are developed from the doctrinal roots of a religion and doctrines are rooted in the mythic dimension of that tradition. The doctrines of a tradition help to understand and interpret its meaning. In this process a constant re-interpretation takes place as it changes with time to conserve the tradition. 4. The Social Dimension: Social dimension is another aspect of religion as living together is a part of human life where religion fulfills social needs. This dimension in religion can be more related to society than its inner religious structure which is only possible in only few tribal groups. The sense of being a social body of people has been characteristic in many religions and expresses loyalty to communal life and also to sub-sects that are within a larger community. The social life is essential in different ways, to both, the people who seclude themselves to lead s pious life, like monks, and also to lay-persons.

The elect from the primary community assume to attain a sacred social life by giving alms to those already on the way to higher state like the monks, bikkus etc. Further the functional structure of caste system in Indian society strengthens the interaction of religion and society. The differences are explained in terms of karma that closely relates to the theory of Dharma, thus the religious doctrine provides the conceptual grounding for Indias pluralist society. The two levels of structure of segregation of society are accommodated in a tradition with a community as the sacred society with its concern to preserve its own inner life, and its interaction with wider human community. 5. The Ethical dimension: In primal societies, the relation with other people as well as nature has been effectively maintained by the taboo regarding the feared power of either sacred or profane objects. The human cultural behavior, including primal cultures, emerges out of responses to the task of relating to environment, natural and human, by way of adaption, or attunement, or transcending, or transforming. However religion is not merely adaption to the material environment nor the ethical dimension can just be seen as rules derived for betterment of society. It refers to a traditions transcendent dimension or to religious doctrine. Ethical life includes sacred forms of tradition and is patterned according to a peculiar vision of the universe, so that doing things in a particular way will be, as it were, structurally required. This can also be different in some traditions where Dharma refers to proper cosmic ordering of things and the social order is explained by the dynamism of karmic actions contributing to the density of the whole process. Other religions though admit the importance of ethical dimension, maintain that it is not directly related to ultimate reality. 6. The Experiential Dimension: There is a variety of experiences in terms of psychological features and spiritual authenticity in a religion because people differ in their temperament and participation their tradition. However the true authenticity of religious experience cannot be measured by outward forms. The experiential dimension is the peak of other dimensions of a traditional life as the experience in the inner life is given high priority in a religious tradition. The character of religious experience is the essential and definitive core of religion along with its diversity in each tradition, which is typical of a religion. Friedrich Schleiermacher and Rudolf Otto defined religion with their numinous transcendentalist and dependence-type perspectives respectively, by reducing religious experience to one particular type, distinct in each case, misinterpreted the possible range of such experience. Fully developed traditions have an accompanying sense of inner tranquility rather than the awful sense of numinous. 7. A religious tradition is structured organically, with all the above factors as interdependent components and cannot be understood in isolated form though they are peculiar for each religious tradition. This helps

us to understand and analyze religions comparatively, provided the attempt should be more cautious and subtle. 8. The each of six dimensions discussed above function as a dynamic process with constant transitions and mutations. Nevertheless, this is not accepted by its devotees and comparative religionists, the modern apologists had not much difficulty with the belief of this continuous change subjected to the social and cultural changes. Traditions with a more conservative approach will tend to prevent the change but ultimately it is inevitable historically as the interpretation of the same traditional dimension may change from one generation to another and there would be a need to re-view the interpretations. 9. Symbolist character of a religion is inherent with its structural manifestations. Invariably the religious traditions express the ritual and mythic forms symbolically, in one form or the other. A core-symbol of a peculiar significance of a tradition, stand out highlighted and other inter related symbols are formed. A religion is a culturally structured symbol-system. Communicating the meaning of a symbol of a religious tradition to its participant is complex, as no single or simple meaning can be assumed. The central symbol, to remain central need to be re-interpreted, as it cant be changed because of its very connectedness to the tradition itself. The extent of which these primal symbols are registered in human consciousness or sub-consciousness is also important. The way people interpret the symbols helps to understand their significance and is intrinsic and essential to its existence as a symbol whether the interpretation is unsophisticated or unarticulated. 10. Aesthetic aspect is another character of a religion related closely to its symbolic aspect, (music, art, poetry, dance etc.) often regarded as merely a peripheral or ornamental, that may even distract from the essential religious life. Though some puritan traditions avoid this aspect considering as frivolous, there has been an impact of this, in one form or the other. However, this dimension in a tradition can be understood as a form of expression of creativity or joy rather than an aspect with a meaning or significance. Some forms of art in Indian traditions are an exception. Few spontaneous aesthetic expressions like poetry, point to a faith-experience also. 11. Sacred Focus or Sacred Object is the centre or the objective aspect of the immense and complex phenomena found in a tradition, with which all the dimensions are oriented and are woven as a medium to achieve this goal. This achievement of the ultimate might imply to perceptual elitism within a tradition, assuming various levels of participation and experience, though the significance of the degree varies from each tradition. This degree is related to regular spiritual discipline that implies to assume that some or more authentically related to sacred focus than others. This Sacred Focus in many traditions is not just one but a cluster of foci. Also no single form of sacred object is common to all traditions. 4