Category talk:Swaminarayan Sampradaya

Name Change

According to Webster Dictionary, the definition of sect is as follows.

1 a: a dissenting or schismatic religious body; especially : one regarded as extreme or heretical

Can we rename Swaminarayan sect to Swaminarayan faith or something a little less polar? Swaminarayan Hinduism does not fit the above definition. Moksha88 01:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree to propose the name change. The word "sect" has negative connatation and is applied only in semitic religions. The word sect is defined as "A group of people with somewhat different religious or opinions contrary to orthodox religious (esp. Christian) doctrine" All editors should push against using the word "Sect" in favor of "Sampradaya" or "Denomination" Kapil.xerox (talk) 05:50, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I also think the name of this category should be changed. I agree with Kapil.xerox that ‘sect’ has a negative connotation and I have proposed a category name change to ‘Swaminarayan Hinduism.’ The new title has a general definition and there is an Oxford University Press published book titled ‘Swaminarayan Hinduism’ and another one published by Cambridge University Press titled ‘Introduction to Swaminarayan Hinduism’, so Swaminarayan Hinduism is a term that seems accepted by scholars.Apollo1203 (talk) 04:44, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Apollo1203 I agree with your reasoning. We should follow the scholarly consensus as you outlined. I also corrected my previous comment since an unregistered user changed what I had written before. Moksha88 (talk) 18:09, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes. The term Sect is negative or old fashenable. Only not to S. Hinduism, Hinduism is for major traditions such as Shaivite Hinduism etc, not for subtraditions within Vaishnavism as Swaminarayan. I've already renamed Cat Krishnaite Vaishnava sects to Cat Krishnaite Vaishnava denominations. Still to need cat Vaishnava sects, Shaiva sects, and so on. So, better, Swaminarayan Vaishnavism (semilary to Gaudiya Vaishnavism or Sri Vaishnavism) or, as said Kapil.xerox above, Swaminarayan Sampradaya.DayakSibiriak (talk) 14:31, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Categories

I removed the category ‘Hindu new religious movement.’ According to Britannica, a new religious movement is ‘the generally accepted term for what is sometimes called a cult.’ As multiple scholarly sources show that Swaminarayan Hinduism is a denomination within the larger Hindu religion, it would not be accurate to describe Swaminarayan Hinduism with a term that is synonymous to cult.

Additionally, I removed the category ‘Krishnaite Vaishnava denominations.’ Scholarly sources indicate that followers believe their God, Swaminarayan, to be distinct from Krishna, so Swaminarayan Hinduism is not a Krishnaite denomination Apollo1203 (talk) 04:43, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

All right about Krishnaism Apollo1203. Only to need add back Category:Hindu new religious movements. Let us do not confusion notions "New religions" (not only cults) and "Hindu NRM". Any 19th-century and later establishments are within Hindu NRM. DayakSibiriak (talk) 14:40, 10 March 2021 (UTC) See: Williams 2006. DayakSibiriak (talk) 09:32, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

While Williams categorizes the Swaminarayan Sampradaya as a Hindu NRM, he is not in line with the scholarly consensus WP:RS/AC. Williams writes, Swaminarayan, the denomination’s founder, "has been identified correctly as the last of the medieval saints and the first of the neo-Hindu reformers,” but Hatcher challenges Williams’s ability to make this claim as it situates the history of Hinduism in India within a colonial paradigm. Hatcher notes “the canonical scholarly literature on religious reform on modern India” makes no reference to the Swaminarayan Sampradaya in discussing modern Hinduism:

• William Joseph Wilkins’s Modern Hinduism (1887)
• John Nicol Farquhar’s Modern Religious Reform Movements in India (1915)
• Glyn Richard’s A Sourcebook of Modern Hinduism (1985)
• Sources of Indian Tradition (Hay 1988)
• Arvind Sharma’s Modern Hindu Thought (2002)
• David Smith’s Hinduism and Modernity (2003)

In fact, Hatcher references Heimsath (1964) who writes that Swaminarayan is “much closer in inspiration, character, and message to the traditional saints of the pre-modern period than to any of the religious leaders of the modern Westernized reform movements." Thus Hatcher clarifies that the term ‘reform’ is particularly problematic when linked with the trope of revival, noting that “it must surely remain problematic to claim that Sahajanand was interested in reviving the past.”. S Patel (2017) also notes that framing Swaminarayan’s teachings as a reform “distorts our historical understanding.” By viewing the Swaminarayan tradition from a myopic lens of reform, we overlook “the deeper engagements the community had” with various dynamics in a shifting political scene.” Thus, arbitrary cutoff of 19th Century that you apply here to label a Hindu group an NRM is problematic, as indicated by the majority of scholars outside of Williams, as it only furthers an orientalist interpretation of history. Therefore, the Swaminarayan Sampradaya is not a NRM. Apollo1203 (talk) 03:24, 26 April 2021 (UTC)