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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian religions
This title deals with the role of memory in shaping religion in the
ancient cities of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. This volume
brings together scholars and researchers working on memory and
religion in ancient urban environments. Chapters explore topics
relating to religious traditions and memory, and the
multifunctional roles of architectural and geographical sites,
mythical figures and events, literary works and artefacts. Pagan
religions were often less static and more open to new influences
than previously understood. One of the factors that shape religion
is how fundamental elements are remembered as valuable and
therefore preservable for future generations. Memory, therefore,
plays a pivotal role when - as seen in ancient Rome during late
antiquity - a shift of religions takes place within communities.
The significance of memory in ancient societies and how it was
promoted, prompted, contested and even destroyed is discussed in
detail. This volume, the first of its kind, will not only address
the main cultures of the ancient world - Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece
and Rome - but also look at urban religious culture and funerary
belief, and how concepts of ethnic religion were adapted in new
religious environments.
Winner of the 2022 Association for the Study of Japanese Mountain
Religion Book Prize Defining Shugendo brings together leading
international experts on Japanese mountain asceticism to discuss
what has been an essential component of Japanese religions for more
than a thousand years. Contributors explore how mountains have been
abodes of deities, a resting place for the dead, sources of natural
bounty and calamities, places of religious activities, and a vast
repository of symbols. The book shows that many peoples have chosen
them as sites for ascetic practices, claiming the potential to
attain supernatural powers there. This book discusses the history
of scholarship on Shugendo, the development process of mountain
worship, and the religious and philosophical features of devotion
at specific sacred mountains. Moreover, it reveals the rich
material and visual culture associated with Shugendo, from statues
and steles, to talismans and written oaths.
One of the first attempts ever to present in a systematic way a
non-western semiotic system. This book looks at Japanese esoteric
Buddhism and is based around original texts, informed by explicit
and rigorous semiotic categories. It is a unique introduction to
important aspects of the thought and rituals of the Japanese
Shingon tradition. Semiotic concerns are deeply ingrained in the
Buddhist intellectual and religious discourse, beginning with the
idea that the world is not what it appears to be, which calls for a
more accurate understanding of the self and reality. This in turn
results in sustained discussions on the status of language and
representations, and on the possibility and methods to know reality
beyond delusion; such peculiar knowledge is explicitly defined as
enlightenment. Thus, for Buddhism, semiotics is directly relevant
to salvation; this is a key point that is often ignored even by
Buddhologists. This book discusses in depth the main elements of
Buddhist semiotics as based primarily on original Japanese
pre-modern sources. It is a crucial publication in the fields of
semiotics and religious studies.
A fascinating and important volume which brings together new
perspectives on the objections to, and appropriation of Native
American Spirituality. Native Americans and Canadians are largely
romanticised or sidelined figures in modern society. Their
spirituality has been appropriated on a relatively large scale by
Europeans and non-Native Americans, with little concern for the
diversity of Native American opinions. Suzanne Owen offers an
insight into appropriation that will bring a new understanding and
perspective to these debates.This important volume collects
together these key debates from the last few years and sets them in
context, analyses Native American objections to appropriations of
their spirituality and examines 'New Age' practices based on Native
American spirituality." The Appropriation of Native American
Spirituality" includes the findings of fieldwork among the Mi'Kmaq
of Newfoundland on the sharing of ceremonies between Native
Americans and First Nations, which highlights an aspect of the
debate that has been under-researched in both anthropology and
religious studies: that Native American discourses about the
breaking of 'protocols', rules on the participation and performance
of ceremonies, is at the heart of objections to the appropriation
of Native American spirituality.This groundbreaking new series
offers original reflections on theory and method in the study of
religions, and demonstrates new approaches to the way religious
traditions are studied and presented.Studies published under its
auspices look to clarify the role and place of Religious Studies in
the academy, but not in a purely theoretical manner. Each study
will demonstrate its theoretical aspects by applying them to the
actual study of religions, often in the form of frontier research.
Today the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India, is a major Hindu
religious pilgrimage and the largest religious gathering in the
world. In 2001, according to the government of Uttar Pradesh, 30
million pilgrims were drawn to the confluence of the rivers Ganga
and Yamuna on the most auspicious day for bathing. In an impressive
feat of organization and administration, the first mela of the new
millennium was managed to the overwhelming satisfaction of most,
with an impressive health and safety record. The loudest complaint
had to do with the intrusive presence of the media. Journalists,
largely representing foreign media outlets, had swarmed to the
mela, intent on broadcasting to a global audience sensational
images of naked (or wet-sari-clad) Indians taking part in "ancient"
religious rituals.
Resistance to foreign interference with the mela has roots that go
back 200 years. The British colonial state and the colonized had
different ideas about what the Kumbh Mela represented: for the
former, it was a potentially dangerous gathering that demanded
tight regulation and control, but for the latter it was a sacred
sphere in which foreign domination and interference were
intolerable. In this book Kama Maclean examines this tension and
the manner in which it was negotiated by each side. She asks why
and how the colonial state tried to manipulate the mela and, more
important, how the mela changed as Indians responded to the
colonial power. In recent years many scholars have emphasized the
extent to which the Kumbh Mela has been monopolized by the Hindu
nationalist movement. Maclean seeks to situate the history of the
Kumbh Mela in Allahabad within a much broader context. She explores
the role ofa pilgrimage fair like the Kumbh Mela in disseminating
ideas, particularly political ones like nationalism and ideas about
social reform.
Kama Maclean tells the mesmerizing and important story of the
Kumbh Mela with exciting detail as well as careful scholarly
attention, illuminating for the reader the full scope of the
event's historical and socio-political context.
This book describes and analyses the different roles women have
played in the Islamic world, past and present. Starting with Sharia
regulations and their applications in societies throughout history,
it addresses the obstacles and opportunities women have faced, and
still face, in various Islamic societies. The last chapter
addresses women's participation in the Arab Spring and their hopes
and disappointments. The result is a vivid portrait of the
different worlds of women in Islam, encompassing religion and law,
sexuality and love, literature and the arts, law and professional
life, and politics and power.
This book looks to the rich and varied Islamic tradition for
insights into what it means to be human and, by implication, what
this can tell us about the future human. The transhumanist
movement, in its more radical expression, sees Homo sapiens as the
cousin, perhaps the poorer cousin, of a new Humanity 2.0: 'Man' is
replaced by 'Superman'. The contribution that Islam can make to
this movement concerns the central question of what this 'Superman'
- or 'Supermuslim' - would actually entail. To look at what Islam
can contribute we need not restrict ourselves to the Qur'an and the
legal tradition, but also reach out to its philosophical and
literary corpus. Roy Jackson focuses on such contributions from
Muslim philosophy, science, and literature to see how Islam can
confront and respond to the challenges raised by the growing
movement of transhumanism.
This book examines contemporary jihad as a cult of violence and
power. All jihadi groups, whether Shiite or Sunni, Arab or not, are
characterized by a similar bloodlust. Murawiec characterizes this
belief structure as identical to that of Europe's medieval
millenarians and apocalyptics, arguing that both jihadis and their
European cousins shared in a Gnostic ideology: a God-given mission
endowed the Elect with supernatural powers and placed them above
the common law of mankind. Although the ideology of jihad is
essentially Islamic, Murawiec traces the political technologies
used by modern jihad to the Bolsheviks. Their doctrines of terror
as a system of rule were appropriated by radical Islam through
multiple lines of communication. This book brings history,
anthropology, and theology to bear to understand the mind of jihad
that has declared war on the West and the world.
Originally published in 1864. Author: H. H. Wilson, M.A., F.R.S.,
Language: English Keywords: Religion / Hinduism Translated from the
original Sanskrit. Many of the earliest books, particularly those
dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and
increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these
classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using
the original text and artwork.
The study of the Books of Chronicles has focused in the past mainly
on its literary relationship to Historical Books such as Samuel and
Kings. Less attention was payed to its possible relationships to
the priestly literature. Against this backdrop, this volume aims to
examine the literary and socio-historical relationship between the
Books of Chronicles and the priestly literature (in the Pentateuch
and in Ezekiel). Since Chronicles and Pentateuch (and also Ezekiel)
studies have been regarded as separate fields of study, we invited
experts from both fields in order to open a space for fruitful
discussions with each other. The contributions deal with
connections and interactions between specific texts, ideas, and
socio-historical contexts of the literary works, as well as with
broad observations of the relationship between them.
Singing for the Gods develops a new approach towards an old
question in the study of religion - the relationship of myth and
ritual. Focusing on ancient Greek religion, Barbara Kowalzig
exploits the joint occurrence of myth and ritual in archaic and
classical Greek song-culture. She shows how choral performances of
myth and ritual, taking place all over the ancient Greek world in
the early fifth century BC, help to effect social and political
change in their own time. Religious song emerges as integral to a
rapidly changing society hovering between local, regional, and
panhellenic identities and between aristocratic rule and democracy.
Drawing on contemporary debates on myth, ritual, and performance in
social anthropology, modern history, and theatre studies, this book
establishes Greek religion's dynamic role and gives religious
song-culture its deserved place in the study of Greek history.
Wang Fuzhi (1619-1692), a Ming loyalist, was forced to find
solutions for both cultural and political crises of his time. In
this book Mingran Tan provides a comprehensive review of Wang
Fuzhi's understanding of historical events and his interpretation
of the Confucian classics. Tan explains what kind of Confucian
system Wang Fuzhi was trying to construct according to his motto,
"The Six Classics require me to create something new". He sought a
basis for Confucian values such as filial piety, humanity and
ritual propriety from political, moral and cosmological
perspectives, arguing that they could cultivate a noble
personality, beatify political governance, and improve social and
cosmological harmony. This inspired Wang Fuzhi's attempt to
establish a syncretic blend of the three branches of
Neo-Confucianism, i.e., Zhu Xi's (1130-1200) philosophy of
principle , Wang Yangming's (1472-1529) philosophy of mind and
Zhang Zai's (1020-1077) philosophy of qi (material force). The most
thorough work on Wang Fuzhi available in English, this study
corrects some general misunderstanding of the nature of Wang
Fuzhi's philosophy and helps readers to understand Wang Fuzhi from
an organic perspective. Building upon previous scholars' research
on Wang Fuzhi's notion of moral cultivation, Tan gives a
comprehensive understanding of how Wang Fuzhi improves social and
cosmological harmony through compliance with Confucian rituals.
Contents Include CONFUCIANISM Confucius and the Confucian School
Religious Ideas of the Confucian Classes Confucian Ethics Modern
Confucianism TAOISM Lao-tzu The Tao-Teth-Ching Later Taoist Writers
Modern TaoismKeywords: Confucian Ethics Confucian School Lao Tzu
Confucianism Taoism Religious Ideas Confucius Taoist Tao
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