Religious Scriptures in Indonesia focusing on Semantic Studies towards unity

Abstract

This study is a literature review study of recognized religious scriptures in Indonesia with a focus on semantic studies of the word ‘love’ words using NVivo 12 Plus software designed specifically to support deep levels of data analysis. The literature search applied the keyword ‘love’ in Indonesian unless there was no scripture available in Indonesian. This study research ascertained that in all the holy scriptures of recognized religions practicing in Indonesia, the word ‘love’ was obtainable through a text search using software NVivo 12 Plus. It uncovered that in the Holy Bible the word appears as many as 495 times, in the Holy Qur'an 58 times, in the Vedas 241 times, in the Tripitaka 1705 times, and in Si Shu 571 times. Semantic studies of the word ‘love’ in the original language of religious scriptures in Indonesia found the words Ahav, Hesed, Agape, and Philia in Christianity, Hubb, Wadda, and Rahmah in Islam, Prema in Hinduism, Metta in Buddhism, and Ren in Confucianism. This study explains that the term ‘love’ thus exists in every religious scripture in Indonesia and can be a campaign slogan which could be implemented to increase tolerance between diverse religious communities in Indonesia that are plural and often multicultural and this can hopefully play a huge role in building a sense of religious community in order to increase national unity on the whole. This study explains that ‘love’ exists in every religious scripture in Indonesia and can be used in any campaigns implemented to increase tolerance and harmony between religiously diverse communities in Indonesia that are considered to be pluralistically inclined. This will support the notion of having a stronger sense of religious harmony in the community so as to increase and promote the notion of national unity through love.

Keywords

• religious scriptures
• semantics
• indonesia
• social cohesion
• unity