ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the ideas about meaning and materiality as reflecting radically distinct semiotic ideologies, i.e., sets of ideas about how things and practices carry meaning from and to people. "Semiotics" points toward a way of looking at meaning that emphasizes practices, contexts, and interpretation. The relative weight of iconic and indexical meanings is thus of great importance for the shroud's religious status. Hinduism refers to the many practices of worship and devotion that arose in southern Asia to seek blessings from deities, to maintain rules of purity, and to meditate on the wheel of suffering. Sacrifice once served as the mainstay of Indian religion, of what is often called the Vedic religion that preceded Buddhism and modern Hinduism. Indian religious ideology shows a change from practicing animal sacrifice to renouncing meat consumption. Opposition to sacrifice was one element in broader movements for religious reform and national self-determination.
