Religion is closely interwoven with daily life in many of the countries devastated by the tsunami, and superstition is also rife. Faced with the loss of their loved ones, homes and means of income, many believers are asking why the disaster happened - yet it appears their suffering has strengthened their faith rather than shattered it.
In consoling their faithful, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian leaders all seem to have a common explanation. Sinful man was responsible.
In Thailand and Sri Lanka, Buddhist monks laid the blame for the tsunami on people's attachment to worldly things. Greed, hatred and ignorance in this life and past lives creates bad karma and could cause suffering, they said. Ultimately, people are responsible for what happens to them. Even the children who perished in the tsunami might have died because of the actions of their parents. The Dhammapada, or Buddhist holy book, states that bad things happen to good people because there are myriad karmic causes conspiring to bring about an event.
The Venerable Phaisal Visalo, chief monk of Wat Pa Sukhato, a monastery in the Thai province of Chaiyaphum, blamed the tsunami on Thai society placing too much importance on economic development and the exploitation of natural resources.
'By doing so, we oppress Mother Nature, having no respect for it and neglecting it, as we are obsessed with wealth,' he said at a Bangkok inter-religious seminar, 'Tsunami: Lesson on the Sign of the Times', last month.
A Buddhist monk from a temple outside Galle in Sri Lanka said most Buddhists were looking to religion not to find answers but to cope with their loss and ease the path of the spirits of the dead. The Venerable Thalpe Ariyajothi Thera said more people were meditating and asking him to perform cleansing rituals to rid their lives of bad spirits.
