Dareecha-e-Tahqeeq یق دریچۂ تحق ISSN PRINT 2958-0005 ISSN Online 2790-9972 VOL 5, Issue 2 www.dareechaetahqeeq.com dareecha.tahqeeq@gmail.com 44 Hamza Hassan PhD Candidate, Film Studies, Faculty of Applied & Creative Arts, University Malaysia Sarawak, Kuching, Malaysia Teo Miaw Lee Senior Lecturer, Film Studies, Faculty of Applied & Creative Arts, University Malaysia Sarawak, Kuching, Malaysia A Semiotical Study of Religious Elements in Novel/Film Pinjar: With Reference to the Society of Indian Sub-Continent, portrayed in South Asian Cinema Abstract Bollywood is regarded as the leading film industry of South Asia. Pinjar is a Bollywood film, based on a novel. It is having the themes of religious contrasts and cultural differences. This article studies the religious elements of different religions of the Indian sub-continent as portrayed in the film Pinjar. Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism are regarded as three leading religions of Indian Sub-Continent and this article is discussing all three in detail. The traces of all these religions can be traced in the society of the Indian Sub-continent as portrayed in the cinema. Pierce‟s Model of Semiotics has been applied on the obtained data from the film Pinjar to get the accurate results. In addition, this article is also drawing the religious elements from the text of the novel. Key Words Cinematography, Film Studies, Religions in Sub-Continent, Semiotics, South Asian Cinema, Bollywood Introduction The Indian Sub-Continent is termed as the multi-culture, multi-racial, multi-linguistics and the society of multiple creeds. For centuries, the people belonging to various creeds, faiths, traditions and civilizations lived there together. 1. Religious Culture in Indian Sub-Continent According to 1961 Census of India, more than 1652 mother tongues are spoken in India (Benedikter, 2013) while Ethnologue mentions 74 languages are spoken in Pakistan (Pakistan, 2016) besides 38 languages are used in Bangladesh (Languages of Bangladesh, Culture, 2020). The cultural background of the Indian Sub-Continent got existence after a long history, varied demography and sole geography. From one region to the other, there is a contrast of customs, traditions, literature, arts, creeds, religious beliefs and languages. The land of Indian sub- continent is enriched with varied cultures and traditions of hundreds of years old exist here. Presently, the word diversity is frequently used than multiculturalism with the existing caste system (Geertz, 2017). The mass population in Indian Sub-continent was consisted on the Hindus while the Muslims were the second majority while all other religions like Sikhism, Parsee, Zoroastrian, Judaism, Jew, Jainism, Buddhism and Baha‟is religion in minority. Such diversity and