Salvation (Lat., salus, ‘sound, safe’). The act or state of being safe in ultimate terms. Although all religions have some sense of a condition which might appropriately be called by this name, the state and the way to it are very differently understood. Thus in Judaism, there is concern to achieve deliverance from sin and for a final messianic victory, but no word or phrase in general use that summarizes the idea of ‘salvation’. Again, in Islam, there is much concern with the day of judgement (yaum al-Din) and with the mercy of God, who is constantly invoked bʾismi-Llāhi rahmāni warahīm, ‘in the name of God, merciful and compassionate’. But the most common word for ‘salvation’, najah, is used only once in the Qurʾān Again, in Buddhism, there is strong emphasis from the Buddha that he is only a physician who can diagnose ills and suggest the path to a cure, but that each person must be his or her own saviour. It is only in Mahāyāna Buddhism that figures akin to saviours (especially bodhisattvas) enter in. In Hinduism, the notion is more clearly expressed through terms derived from muc, ‘release from pains or penalties’, such as mukti (mukta) and mokṣa. Help from a ‘saviour’, especially an avatāra of Viṣṇu, and above all from Kṛṣṇa, is acknowledged. It is in Christianity that great emphasis is laid on salvation, deriving from the centrality of Christ. The Christian doctrine has several aspects: (i) the work of Christ in the atonement (and, broadly, in the incarnation generally); (ii) the justification and sanctification of men and women by God's grace; and (iii) the outcome of death and of history (see JUDGEMENT; ESCHATOLOGY).