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Religions of Ancient China
by Herbert Allen GilesThis work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Religions of Asia in Practice: An Anthology
by Donald S. LopezThe acclaimed volumes of Princeton Readings in Religions present the remarkable range of all that is encompassed in the practice of religions, across the centuries and across the world. Religions of Asia in Practice: An Anthology brings together into a single volume the most important and fascinating selections from the volumes on Buddhism, India, China, Tibet, and Japan to give an overview of how religions have been lived by both ordinary and extraordinary people throughout the continent of Asia. These materials--many of which had never before been translated into any Western language--include ritual manuals, hagiographical and autobiographical writings, popular commentaries, instructions to children, poetry, and folktales. Each is preceded by a substantial introduction in which the translator discusses the text's history and influence and guides the reader through points of potential difficulty and particular interest. The volume includes, in addition, clear and compelling introductions to each of the major traditions. Religions of Asia in Practice: An Anthology offers a fascinating look at the spectrum of religious practices in Asia over almost three millennia. As such, it is ideally suited for use as a textbook in courses on world or Eastern religions as well as for the general reader.
Religions of China in Practice
by Donald S. LopezThis third volume of Princeton Readings in Religions demonstrates that the "three religions" of China--Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism (with a fourth, folk religion, sometimes added)--are not mutually exclusive: they overlap and interact with each other in a rich variety of ways. The volume also illustrates some of the many interactions between Han culture and the cultures designated by the current government as "minorities. " Selections from minority cultures here, for instance, are the folktale of Ny Dan the Manchu Shamaness and a funeral chant of the Yi nationality collected by local researchers in the early 1980s. Each of the forty unusual selections, from ancient oracle bones to stirring accounts of mystic visions, is preceded by a substantial introduction. As with the other volumes, most of the selections here have never been translated before. Stephen Teiser provides a general introduction in which the major themes and categories of the religions of China are analyzed. The book represents an attempt to move from one conception of the "Chinese spirit" to a picture of many spirits, including a Laozi who acquires magical powers and eventually ascends to heaven in broad daylight; the white-robed Guanyin, one of the most beloved Buddhist deities in China; and the burning-mouth hungry ghost. The book concludes with a section on "earthly conduct. "
Religions of China in Practice (Princeton Readings in Religions #37)
by Donald S. Lopez, ]r., EditorThis third volume of Princeton Readings in Religions demonstrates that the "three religions" of China--Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism (with a fourth, folk religion, sometimes added)--are not mutually exclusive: they overlap and interact with each other in a rich variety of ways. The volume also illustrates some of the many interactions between Han culture and the cultures designated by the current government as "minorities." Selections from minority cultures here, for instance, are the folktale of Ny Dan the Manchu Shamaness and a funeral chant of the Yi nationality collected by local researchers in the early 1980s. Each of the forty unusual selections, from ancient oracle bones to stirring accounts of mystic visions, is preceded by a substantial introduction. As with the other volumes, most of the selections here have never been translated before. Stephen Teiser provides a general introduction in which the major themes and categories of the religions of China are analyzed. The book represents an attempt to move from one conception of the "Chinese spirit" to a picture of many spirits, including a Laozi who acquires magical powers and eventually ascends to heaven in broad daylight; the white-robed Guanyin, one of the most beloved Buddhist deities in China; and the burning-mouth hungry ghost. The book concludes with a section on "earthly conduct."
Religions of Early India: A Cultural History
by Richard H. DavisThe extraordinary multiplicity of religions and religious cultures in India, chronicled over two thousand yearsFrom its earliest recorded history, India was a place of remarkable and varied religious activity, ranging from elaborate sacrificial rituals and rigorous regimes of personal austerity to psycho-spiritual experimentation and utopian visions. In this ambitious and wide-ranging chronicle, Richard Davis offers a history of India&’s myriad religious cultures that spans two thousand years, from 1300 BCE to 700 CE. India, Davis writes, was not only the birthplace of the religions we now know as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It was also the home of other, often unnamed religions that can be classified as &“folk&” or &“popular&” religions. Tracing these intertwined practices, Davis shows that the ardent and heterogeneous religious cultures of early India came to define and redefine themselves in relation to one another.Davis recounts this history through voices—voices recorded in hymns, poems, songs, didactic stories, epic narratives, scientific treatises, and theological discourses, as well as voices that speak through material remains, whether monumental sculptures or tiny terracotta figurines of nameless goddesses. He focuses on the long millennium often designated as &“classical India,&” which stretches from the time of the founding figures of Buddhism and Jainism during the sixth century BCE through the seventh-century-CE dynasties of the Chalukyas and the Pallavas in southern India. Throughout, he emphasizes encounter, interaction, debate, critique, and borrowing among religious communities within a shared, changing social and political reality. The voices and visions of early India&’s religions, Davis shows us, are fascinating in their multiplicity.
Religions of India in Practice
by Donald S. LopezThis volume is organized thematically in order to suggest the interactions, intersections, and confluences in the religious practices of India.
Religions of India in Practice (Princeton Readings in Religions)
by Donald S. LopezThe inaugural volume of Princeton Readings in Religions brings together the work of thirty scholars of the religions of India in a new anthology designed to reshape the ways in which the religious traditions of India are understood. The book contains translations of forty-five works, most of which have never before been available in a Western language. Many of these highlight types of discourse (especially ritual manuals, folktales, and oral narratives) and voices (vernacular, esoteric, domestic, and female) that have not been sufficiently represented in previous anthologies and standard accounts of Indian religions. The selections are drawn from ancient texts, medieval manuscripts, modern pamphlets, and contemporary fieldwork in rural and urban India. They represent every region in South Asia and include Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, and Muslim materials. Some are written texts reflecting elite concerns, while others are transcriptions of oral narratives told by nonliterate peasants. Some texts are addressed to a public and pan-Indian audience, others to a limited coterie of initiates in an esoteric sect, and still others are intended for a few women gathered in the courtyard for a household ceremony. The editor has reinforced this diversity by arranging the selections within several overarching themes and categories of discourse (hymns, rituals, narratives, and religious interactions), and encourages us to make our own connections.
Religions of India: An Introduction
by Sushil Mittal Gene ThursbyIndia is a highly diverse country, home to a wide array of languages, religions, and cultural traditions. Analyzing the dynamic religious traditions of this democratic nation sheds light on the complex evolution from India’s past to today’s modern culture. Written by leading experts in the field, Religions of India provides students with an introduction to India’s vibrant religious faiths. To understand its heritage and core values, the beginning chapters introduce the indigenous Dharmic traditions of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, while the later chapters examine the outside influences of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These chapters are designed for cross-religious comparison, with the history, practices, values, and worldviews of each belief system explained. The final chapter helps students relate what they have learnt to religious theory, preparing the way for future study. This thoroughly revised second edition combines solid scholarship with clear and lively writing to provide students with an accessible and comprehensive introduction to religion in India. This is the ideal textbook for students approaching religion in Asia, South Asia, or India for the first time. Features to aid study include: discussion questions at the end of each chapter, images, a glossary, suggestions for further reading, and an Companion Website with additional links for students to further their study.
Religions of Iran: From Prehistory to the Present
by Richard FoltzAlthough today associated exclusively with Islam, Iran has in fact played an unparalleled role within all the world religions, injecting Iranian ideas into the Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, and Manichaean traditions of the merchants who passed along the Silk Road. This vivid and surprising work explores the manner in which Persian culture has interacted with and transformed each world faith, from the migration of the Israelites to Iran thousands of years ago to the influence of Iranian notions on Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity. Foltz considers Iran's role in shaping the Muslim world, not only in the Middle East but also in South Asia in an evocative and informative journey through the spiritual heritage of an ancient and influential region.
Religions of Japan in Practice (Princeton Readings In Religions Ser.)
by George J. TanabeThe forty-five chapters in this anthology have no apparent master by which they may be ordered. This is, in part, by deliberate design, the attempt here being to present Japanese religions in their complex diversity rather than as neatly ordered systems of thought.
Religions of Japan in Practice (Princeton Readings in Religions #8)
by George J. TonabeThis anthology reflects a range of Japanese religions in their complex, sometimes conflicting, diversity. In the tradition of the Princeton Readings in Religions series, the collection presents documents (legends and miracle tales, hagiographies, ritual prayers and ceremonies, sermons, reform treatises, doctrinal tracts, historical and ethnographic writings), most of which have been translated for the first time here, that serve to illuminate the mosaic of Japanese religions in practice. George Tanabe provides a lucid introduction to the "patterned confusion" of Japan's religious practices. He has ordered the anthology's forty-five readings under the categories of "Ethical Practices," "Ritual Practices," and "Institutional Practices," moving beyond the traditional classifications of chronology, religious traditions (Shinto, Confucianism, Buddhism, etc.), and sects, and illuminating the actual orientation of people who engage in religious practices. Within the anthology's three broad categories, subdivisions address the topics of social values, clerical and lay precepts, gods, spirits, rituals of realization, faith, court and emperor, sectarian founders, wizards, and heroes, orthopraxis and orthodoxy, and special places. Dating from the eighth through the twentieth centuries, the documents are revealed to be open to various and evolving interpretations, their meanings dependent not only on how they are placed in context but also on how individual researchers read them. Each text is preceded by an introductory explanation of the text's essence, written by its translator. Instructors and students will find these explications useful starting points for their encounters with the varied worlds of practice within which the texts interact with readers and changing contexts. Religions of Japan in Practice is a compendium of relationships between great minds and ordinary people, abstruse theories and mundane acts, natural and supernatural powers, altruism and self-interest, disappointment and hope, quiescence and war. It is an indispensable sourcebook for scholars, students, and general readers seeking engagement with the fertile "ordered disorder" of religious practice in Japan.
Religions of Rome Volume 1
by Mary Beard Simon Price John NorthThis book offers a radical new survey of more than a thousand years of religious life in Rome, from the foundation of the city to its rise to world empire and its conversion to Christianity. It sets religion in its full cultural context, between the primitive hamlet of the eighth century BC and the cosmopolitan, multicultural society of the first centuries of the Christian era.
Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook (Volume #2)
by Mary Beard Simon Price John NorthThe book presents a wide range of documents illustrating religious life in the Roman world - from the foundations of the city in the eighth century BC to the Christian capital more than a thousand years later. Each document is given a full introduction, explanatory notes and bibliography, and acts as a starting point for further discussion. Judaism and Christianity are given full coverage, as important elements in the religious world of the Roman Empire.
Religions of South Africa (Routledge Revivals)
by David ChidesterFirst published in 1992, this title explores the religious diversity of South Africa, organizing it into a single coherent narrative and providing the first comparative study and introduction to the topic. David Chidester emphasizes the fact that the complex distinctive character of South African religious life has taken shape with a particular economic, social and political context, and pays special attention to the creativity of people who have suffered under conquest, colonialism and apartheid. With an overview of African traditional religion, Christian missions, and African innovations during the nineteenth century, this reissue will be of great value to students of religious studies, South African history, anthropology, sociology, and political studies.
Religions of South Asia: An Introduction
by Sushil Mittal Gene ThursbySouth Asia is home to many of the world's most vibrant religious faiths. It is also one of the most dynamic and historically rich regions on earth, where changing political and social structures have caused religions to interact and hybridise in unique ways. This textbook introduces the contemporary religions of South Asia, from the indigenous religions such as the Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh traditions, to incoming influences such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In ten chapters, it surveys the nine leading belief systems of South Asia and explains their history, practices, values and worldviews. A final chapter helps students relate what they have learnt to religious theory, paving the way for future study. Written by leading experts, Religions of South Asia combines solid scholarship with clear and lively writing to provide students with an accessible and comprehensive introduction. All chapters are specially designed to aid cross-religious comparison, following a standard format covering set topics and issues; the book reveals to students the core principles of each faith, compares it to neighbouring traditions, and its particular place in South Asian history and society. It is a perfect resource for all students of South Asia's diverse and fascinating faiths.
Religions of the Ancient Near East
by Daniel C. SnellThis book is a history of religious life in the Ancient Near East from the beginnings of agriculture to Alexander the Great's invasion in the 300s BCE. Daniel C. Snell traces key developments in the history, daily life and religious beliefs of the people of Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel and Iran. His research investigates the influence of those ideas on the West, with particular emphasis on how religious ideas from this historical and cultural milieu still influence the way modern cultures and religions view the world. Designed to be accessible to students and readers with no prior knowledge of the period, the book uses fictional vignettes to add interest to its material, which is based on careful study of archaeological remains and preserved texts. The book will provide a thoughtful summary of the Ancient Near East and includes a comprehensive bibliography to guide readers in further study of related topics.
Religions of the East (The Library of Essays on Sexuality and Religion)
by Stephen HuntUnder the rubric of 'Religions of the East', which includes Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Janiism and a myriad of Chinese religio-philosophies, are a vast range of views concerning human sexuality. These contrasting attitudes are mapped through this volume on Religions of the East in The Library of Essays on Sexuality and Religion series. Part 1 presents previously-published articles that explore several Eastern Religions in the way they construct sexuality through expressions of their pertinent holy writings and belief systems, as applied in differing historical and cultural contexts. Part 2 takes sexual renunciation and asceticism as its focus through the traditions of Hinduism, Jainism and the Chinese religious systems. Part 3 explores the connection between sexuality, gender and sexuality in Hindu and Buddhist customs in varied social settings. The final part of the volume includes articles examining Eastern religions in their attitudes towards sexual 'variants' including bi-sexuality, trans-sexuality and contested sexual categories.
Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age
by Antonia TripolitisReligions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age is a superb introduction to the principal Western religions and their philosophical counterparts from the beginnings of Alexander the Great's empire in 331 B.C.E. to the emergence of the Christian world in the fourth century C. E. Anton?a Tripolitis, a noted scholar of Late Antiquity, examines the rise of the Hellenistic-Roman world and presents a comprehensive overview of its beliefs and practices, their socio-psychological and historical development, and the reasons for their success or failure. Her work explores Mithraism, Hellenistic Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism, and the philosophies of Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Middle Platonism. It also includes a review of the principal mystery cults, Demeter in Eleusis, Dionysus, Isis, and Cybele or Magna Mater. Based on the most reliable and up-to-date research on the ancient world, this volume is valuable both as a general guide to ancient Western religion and as essential background reading for the study of early Christianity.
Religions of the West Today
by John L. Esposito Darrell J. Fasching Todd T. LewisIdeal for courses in Western religions, Religions of the West Today, Third Edition, covers the same material contained in the authors' longer textbook, World Religions Today, Fifth Edition. Revealing the significance of religion in contemporary life, it explores Judaism, Christianity, Islam, indigenous religions, and new religions as dynamic, ongoing forces in the lives of individuals and in the collective experience of modern societies. <P><P>This unique volume accomplishes two goals: it connects today's religions to their classical beliefs and practices and focuses on how these religions have both radically changed the modern world and been changed by it. The book is enhanced by numerous pedagogical aids--text boxes, timelines, maps, illustrations, discussion questions, a comprehensive glossary of key terms, and suggestions for further reading--and more than 100 photographs. For a wealth of additional teaching and study resources, visit the book's Companion Website.
Religions of the World (10th Edition)
by Lewis M. Hopfe"Hopfe did an incredible job of making the material readable and flow in a logical fashion...Even with a recent flood of introductory-level texts dealing with the subject, it remains the best introductory text dealing with religions of the world. " Michael Krogman, Chattanooga State Technical College. How does religion affect you? Religion plays a large role in the world events that affect us all; it has an impact on almost everything, from politics to pop culture. The study of religions is essential and Religions of the World provides a comprehensive and engaging introduction. Using a style that is friendly and readable, Religions of the World explains complex themes within the context of real people in real life. This text acquaints you with the teachings, ethics, worship-style, and celebrations of a broad range of religions, from their inception to today. Each chapter features primary source material that gives you first-hand experience with writings that help define each religion. For the tenth edition of Religions of the World, Mark R. Woodward has drawn on his relationships in the Arizona Native American community, his experience living and working in Buddhist and Muslim cultures for extended periods, and his experience teaching thousands of undergraduates an introduction to religions of the world.
Religions of the World (Eighth Edition)
by Lewis M. Hopfe Mark R. WoodwardOffers accurate, comparative descriptions of a broad range of religions and explores living religions in terms of historical and cultural factors that produced them, the lives of their founders, their basic teachings, and their historical development and current status in the world.
Religions of the World, Thirteenth Edition
by Lewis M. Hopfe Mark R. Woodward Brett HendricksonFor courses in World Religions Discover the importance of religion in the world's cultures - yesterday and today The histories, deep-seated beliefs, and ethical systems that make up the world's religions are some of the most important forces at play on our incredibly diverse planet. Religions of the World, Thirteenth Edition guides students as they explore each of the world's major faiths, imparting the knowledge they need to better understand today's world. By explaining religious diversity and complex themes within a historical context, Religions of the World helps students relate to cultures very different from their own. Religions of the World, Thirteenth Edition is also available via REVEL(tm), an immersive learning experience designed for the way today's students read, think, and learn.
Religions of the World: A Latter-Day Saint View
by Spencer J. Palmer Roger R. Keller Dong Sull Choi James A. TorontoThis book presents a wealth of vital information for people seeking greater understanding of the peoples of the world and the beliefs that motivate them.
Religions of the World: Religion in the Twenty-First Century
by Ninian Smart Mary Pat FisherReligion in the Twenty-first Century is a unique and informative survey of the global religious situation as we enter the new millennium. Through a thematic and people-oriented approach, this book provides a valuable introduction to a variety of new religious movements--whether offshoots of traditional religions of founded as a result of millennial expectations or charismatic leaders. It also considers the role of the Interfaith Movement and the ways in which modern technology is spreading religions both new and old. KEY TOPICS: Provides valuable pedagogy, including: timeline; maps; glossary; list of sacred days/festivals; suggested reading; pronunciation guide; index; feature boxes focusing on some aspects of the arts; 11 black and white pictures and artworks.