[HOT] Adding "Buddhist", "Hindu", and Muslim to the tags (Suzan Reed)

[Ciarán Staunton]

Hi Suzan,
I have travelled extensively and lived in Kerala (opposite side of the
country) for a period of time, and I am back mapping there when time
allows. In South India the distinction between Buddhism and Hinduism isn't
as neat as the travel guides tell you, or as the Western mindset would like
it to be. I happen to know of hundreds of sites where there is a Hindu
Temple build over or next to a Buddhist shrine, in some cases integrating
the Buddhist relics into their building, in some cases not. There are
historical "assimilationist" reasons for this, but no local advocates of
Buddhism who would point to the shrine and say Buddhist. There is also hot
debate in India as to whether the the animist practices of some of the
scheduled tribes are in fact Hinduism or are their own type, with the view
that they are "all Hindu" very much promulgated by official sources, but
that view not shared by Anthroplologists and the members of these small
religions.

The solution is obviously to have the descriptive side of the tag first
SHRINE, TEMPLE and so forth. But also accomodate that there are two
possible categories of religious affiliation when that is the case. Note
also that a temple can have several shrines, which is not to complicate
things further for you as I think what you are doing is important cultural
detail for OSM.

Ciarán a.k.a. DeBigC
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