World religions are presented here under four
main categories: 1) the monotheistic
Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; 2) faiths originating in India: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism;
3) the Chinese religious complex
(Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and popular religion) ; and 4)
the polytheistic religions from the Graeco-Roman Norse tradition, Japanese
(Shinto), African, and Native American traditions.
I. The
Monotheistic Abrahamic Faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
A. Judaism
1. The
Patriarchs
Abraham (c. 1800 B. C. / [BCE])
Abraham was the first of the great patriarchs
of the Hebrew faith (Judaism). Living in
the first part of the second millennium B.C. (BCE), it was he to whom Yahweh
(God in the terminology of the Hebrews [Jews]) first spoke of a special
relationship that would become known as the Covenant. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, records
the words attributed to God in providing guidance to Abraham at a time when
Palestine (frequently categorized geographically into northern [Israel] and
southern [Judah]) was teeming with competing states and warring peoples,
compounding the troubles on a natural landscape that was facing climatic
challenge because of a long drought.
Yahweh urged Abraham to leave Palestine (also known extensively as
Canaan) for more hospitable regions.
Abraham thus led his people on a southwestward trek that would
eventually locate them in Egypt.
Abraham had two sons who would succeed their
father in leadership of the Hebrew people on their journey and come to be
regarded as the second and third of the great patriarchs. Isaac was the elder son and first to assume
leadership, succeeded in turn by his brother Jacob, who as an adult took the
name Israel. Under Jacob’s leadership,
the Hebrew people at last firmly ensconced themselves in Egypt, where they
thrived for many centuries before the 13th century B. C. (BCE)
pharaoh Ramses II implemented prosecutorial policies against this long
established immigrant population.
2.
Moses (c. 1200 B. C. [BCE])
The biblical book, Exodus, records the story of Moses, whose life as a baby was under
threat when Ramses promulgated an edict declaring that the first-born child of
all Jews would be put to death. Moses’s
mother took her chances by putting Moses in a basket in the Nile and setting
her precious child afloat. The child was
in fact discovered, but with the ironic twist that pharoah’s daughter reclaimed
the child at riverside and brought the infant to the palace to be raised. Moses
therefore grew up with intimate knowledge of
the royal house of Egypt and the life of the palace. But in time, he came to know of his Hebrew
heritage, taking offense at how his people were suffering under the pharaoh.
Under these circumstances, Moses followed the
voices of his conscience and resolved to lead his people on an exodus (“going
out” or “departing”) from Egypt. The
flight was harried but successful, as Yahweh (according to the account in Exodus) parted the Red Sea for the
fleeing Jews under pursuit of Egyptian forces, leading them into the desert of
the Sinai Peninsula. On Mount Sinai, God
appeared through a burning bush to Moses and gave him the Arc of the Covenant
featuring the Ten Commandments, which established the moral code that would
forever assert the moral standards to be followed by all pious Jews and
Christians: 1) Thou shalt have no other
gods before me; 2) Thou shalt not make
unto thee any graven image; 3) Thou
shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; 4) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy; 5) Honor thy father and thy mother; 6) Thou shalt not kill; 7) Thou shalt not commit adultery; 8) Thou shalt not steal; 9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against
thy neighbor; 10) Thou shalt not covet.
Moses led his people forward toward the
Promised Land but died before the journey was quite complete. But under leader Joshua the Jews did thereafter
reestablish themselves in Palestine and forever regarded themselves as God’s
chosen people of the Covenant, destined to dwell in the Holy Land promised to
them by Yahweh.
The Old
Testament of the Holy Bible
records the history of the Jews and books of wisdom, poetry, and prophesy that would forever guide
them.
3. The
Sacred Texts
a. Torah
The first five books of the biblical Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) are
particularly sacred to the Jews, collected in holy book known as the Torah, which conveys accounts of
creation, the temptation and fall from grade of Adam and Even in the Garden of
Eden, and moral principles and practices that would forever guide Jewish
people.
The Old
Testament, contains 39 books; those
succeeding the Torah, while not as
important for scholarly mastery, carry important information pertinent to
Jewish history, wisdom, poetry, and prophesy to which all practicing Jews
assign great importance.
b. Talmud
The Talmud
consists of texts known as the Mishnah,
containing verses for repetition and study; and the Gemara, featuring the Haggadah
and Halakah, works of the Hebrew
legal tradition produced by Jewish scholars during the period of Babylonian
captivity. These two main works (Mishnah and Gemara) are presented over six parts into which the Talmud is divided.
3. The
Jews in History
The experiences of Abraham and Moses were
formative in terms of God’s Covenant with the Jews as a Chosen People. After Moses, Palestine was ruled leaders
known as the Judges and immediately thereafter by three great kings: Saul, David, and Solomon; during Solomon’s reign, the Temple was built. The Temple would undergo processes of
destruction and rebuilding, remaining a fixture in Jewish life and
consciousness to this day.
During the years 922 B. C. (BCE) through 721
B.C. (BCE), Palestine was divided into two kingdoms, Judah and Israel. Judah continued to function independently
until 598 B.C., but Israel was controlled by a succession of outsiders , from
722 B.C. (BCE). Outsider control
included that of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Alexander the Great and
his successors, and--- most notably---
the Romans. Judah was mostly controlled
by outsiders beginning in 598 B.C. (BCE), beginning with the Babylonian
Captivity of 598-538 B.C. (BCE). The
Romans controlled Palestine (both Judah and Israel) from 63 B.C. (BCE) forward
into the first centuries A.D. (CE). Two
revolts against the Romans during the first century A.D (CE) precipitated an
oppressive counter-response that resulted in the great Jewish diaspora (scattering to live in places
outside Palestine) that found Jews living in many places throughout the globe,
most especially in Europe.
In European urban centers, Jews were economically
successful but were often confined to certain residential areas that became
known as ghettoes. Viewed by European Christians with disdain
due to religious differences, but also resented for their success in business
and academia, Jews were always the targets of discrimination in Europe. Persecution became especially fierce in the
course of the 19th century with oppression of Jews in the ghettoes
and the pogroms conducted under the
Russian tsars (csars). Such oppression
led Theodore Herzl and others to advocate a Zionist
movement for return to the homeland of Palestine. After persecutions reached their height under
the Nazi “Final Solution” culminating in the holocaust, a post- War United Nations voted in 1948 to recognize
the new state of Israel, understood as a Jewish homeland. This set the stage, though, for a conflict
with the Palestinian population of ethnic Arabs who are mostly Muslim. Armed conflicts in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973
did not resolve the issues of territorial rights in Israel and Palestine, and
the two sides are still in dispute in the year 2015.
Jews in the contemporary world may be
classified as Orthodox, those who follow very traditional practices; Reform, those who accommodate themselves in
many ways to liberal social change;
and Conservative, those
resolving to strike a balance between Reform and Orthodox practice.
B.
Christianity (Historic roots to 4
B. C./ BCE)
1. The
Life and Teachings of Jesus
The gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John convey the life and teachings of Jesus.
Since Jesus was born in the time of King
Herod, the leader of Roman-controlled Palestine who
died in 4 B.C. (BCE), he was almost certainly
born no later than that date. He was
born in Bethlehem on the way to Jerusalem, toward which Jesus’s mother Mary and
her husband Joseph had traveled from their community of Nazareth to fulfill
their obligation to register for a Roman census. The birth is presented in the Gospels as a
nonsexual miracle, whereby God chose Mary to bear and deliver a son who would
become Christ the Messiah or “Anointed One,” at once God’s incarnation on earth
and His Son.
According to the Gospel of Matthew, the family
spent time in Egypt, then returned to raise Jesus in Nazareth. The Gospel of Luke records a family trip to
Jerusalem when Jesus was 12 years old, during which he impressed local
religious authorities with his answers to questions based on scripture. At about age 30, Jesus was inspired to spread
a religious message, beginning in his own region of Galilee at the seaside
community of Capernaum. He traveled
also to other areas of Galilee and to such areas northward as Tyre, Sidon, and
Decapolis. According to gospel accounts,
Jesus frequently taught in parables and performed many miracles. His teachings emphasized compassion, love,
and respect for those in humble circumstances.
Jesus reentered Jerusalem to the cries of
“Hosanna” from the exuberant multitude, but he knew that he was incurring the
wrath of both secular (Roman) and religious (Hebrew priests, especially of the
Pharisee group). He dined at a Last
Supper with His disciples, the Twelve Apostles:
the fisher brother duos of Simon and Peter, James and John; Matthew the tax collector; along with Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas,
James, Lebbaeus (also known as Thaddeus), Simon the Canaanite, and Judas
Iscariot. Afterwards, Jesus and the
disciples went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Simon Peter denied
that he knew Jesus upon questioning to Roman guards and Judas betrayed Him to
the authorities. Then guards found Jesus
and arrested him. Jesus was taken first
before Herod, who deferred his case to the higher official, Pontius Pilate. Pontius condemned Jesus to death on the
charge of threatening Roman authority, but the official at one point gave a
huge crowd gathered on the ground below the government building the opportunity
to free either Jesus or a thief by the name of Barabbas. The crowd, presumably including those who
once had cheered Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem, now turned on him and chose
Barabbas for commutation of sentence.
Jesus was given humiliating sentence of crucifixion. Jesus died on a cross in a place known as
Golgotha.
According to gospel accounts, though, three
days later two women found Jesus’s tomb empty.
Jesus thereafter appeared to his disciples in an assertion of the
rebirth that would come to those who believed in Him and gained eternal
life.
3. The
Importance of Paul and the other books of the New Testament
Paul was originally named Saul, a resident of
Tarsus (in southwestern Asia Minor or contemporary Turkey, approximately 12
miles from the Mediterranean Sea).
During the life of Jesus and immediately after, Saul was known as a
vicious persecutor of Christians; but
one day as he was traveling to Damascus, Paul was struck to the ground by
lightning and experienced an epiphany that led him to become the leading
missionary advocate of his day for Jesus as savior.
The epistles of Paul were written to
communities that included some hailed from the Jewish tradition but were
dominated by Gentiles (non-Jews) in these locales outside Palestine. Paul
articulated the essence of a Christian
theology that would prove enduring: the
saving grace of Jesus as the Christ, at once God, son of God, and the Holy
Spirit abiding in the world: the Holy
Trinity.
Thirteen Pauline letters comprise the bulk of
the New Testament succeeding the
gospels. Paul’s communications are
preceded by Acts, which details the
historical effort of those generating new communities of faith; and is succeeded by epistles written by
others, plus Revelations, a startling
work of apocrypha.
4.
Christianity in History
Christians were persecuted under Roman rule
until the Emperor Constantine decreed the faith of the followers of Jesus to be
legal in 313 A.D. (CE); Constantine
himself converted to Christianity on his deathbed. Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the
state creed in 395 A.D. In Rome there
developed a tradition of a religious leader, the pope, successor to the apostle
Peter, the “rock” upon which Jesus had said he would build his kingdom. Popes came to be considered infallible in
matters of religious doctrine, the contravention of whom was heresy. Christian doctrine as articulated by Paul and
elaborated by the pope as leader of the Roman Catholic Church offered
spiritual certainty to the faithful, but absolute authority also proved the
gateway to temptations of an earthly nature and questionable practices such as
the sale of indulgences that offered salvation for a price.
Charlemagne set a precedent for papal
approbation of secular rule for Holy Roman Emperors when he accepted the
blessing of the pope at his coronation in 1000 A.D. (CE). Roman Catholicism gained majority acceptance
across Europe during the medieval era (500-1500 A.D. [CE]), but by the late 15th
century and the early 16th century Martin Luther (in Germany), John
Calvin (Switzerland), and Jon Zwingli (Sweden) articulated alternative versions
of Christianity during a Protestant Reformation that saw a large
minority of people on the continent flocking to new sects. King Henry VIII of England, seeking but not
securing papal annulment of his marriage to Anne Boleyn, also broke with the
Roman Catholic Church.
The departures of these towering personalities
after centuries of overwhelming Roman Catholic dominance in Europe created a
diversified Christianity that would thereafter replace the exclusivist claims
of the pope (advised by his cardinals), issuing decrees and preaching homilies
at the top of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican (formally an
independent city, enveloped by Rome).
The Roman Catholic leadership met at the Council of Trent in 1545 A.D.
(CE) to discuss the Protestant challenge and to formulate a viable program for Counter-Reformation. While internal reform did reclaim and
stabilize support in southern (Italy, Spain, Portugal) and eastern (Poland,
Austro-Hungary) Europe, much of northern (Great Britain, Scandinavian
countries) and western (France, Germany, Netherlands) Europe would produce
various Protestant denominations with administrative leadership strong and
capable enough to supersede Roman Catholic authority. The United States over time would prove a
haven to people of many faiths seeking freedom of religious expression; Christians attending a multiplicity of
Protestant churches formed a sizable majority.
The three major divisions consist of the Roman
Catholic, Greek (Eastern, Russian) Orthodox, and Protestant. In the United States, Protestant churches are
legion and very diverse as to beliefs and practices; Protestants have in common a belief that an
individual’s interpretation of the Bible and personal relationship with God
supersedes any religious authority.
C.
Islam (Historic roots to 600 A.
D./ CE)
1. The
Life and Revelations of Muhammad
Muhammad was born about 570 A. D. to a humble
family of Mecca, a traditional religious center on the Arabian peninsula. On his West Asian journeys as a caravan
driver, Muhammad met many Christians and (especially) Jews, from whom he
learned the teachings of the Old and New Testaments.
At about 28 years of age, Muhammad married a
wealthy widow by the name of Khadija.
His enhanced economic security gave the introspective young man more
time to contemplate the religious texts that he had encountered on his travels
and to compare these with his own reflections upon the religious ideas and
practices common to Arabia. In Mecca,
there was a religious elite of priests who conducted rituals in worship of a
variety of jinn (deities of nature
and commerce) and superintended a number of shrines, including the mysterious Ka’ba, which drew circumambulating
worshipers around its cuboid structure.
At forty years of age Muhammad was inwardly
rent by spiritual turmoil, leading him to retreat to a nearby mountain for deep
thought and soulful solitude. After a
time, he perceived that the angel Jibra’il (Gabriel) spoke to him the very
words of God, whom he would call Allah, giving him revelations destined to
reshape the religious landscape of the Arabian peninsula, other parts of West
Asia, an expanse of North Africa, and eventually the Malay peninsula and
islands now known collectively as Indonesia.
Jibra’il commanded Muhammad to “Recite” the words; thus did Muhammad go forth to speak the words
of Allah that he soon committed to memory.
This process continued over a 22 year period during which Jibra’il
continued to impart the words of Allah to Muhammad.
2. The
Words of the Prophet Recorded in the Qur’an
Muhammad was, like Jesus and all but a few
people of their times, illiterate. The
revelations of Allah (via Jibra’il) to Muhammad would eventually be recorded in
the holy book, Qur’an (Koran).
The Qur’an is composed of 114 suras (chapters) divided into many ayat (verses) containing in all about
78,000 words. The message in the Qur’an exhorts people to believe in the
august power of Allah, honoring Him with just and moral actions. For all aspects of life, the Qur’an is the complete referent for Muslims,
those who adhere to the religion of Islam (“Submission” [to the Will of Allah]).
3. The Hejira and Return to Mecca
Muhammad stirred the jealousy and moral
discomfort in the established jinn
priests, who rightly perceived the Prophet as a threat to their own power,
prestige, and livelihoods. Such was
their nature of their pressure on and admonitions to Muhammad that he felt
impelled to leave Mecca one evening in 622 A.D. (CE), an event known to the
Islamic faithful as the hegira (hejira, hjra). This “flight” took
him to Medina, some 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Mecca. There Muhammad regrouped, recited the
revelations, and prophesied according to the mission that Allah through
Jibra’il had given him. Over the course
of the next several years, Muhammad attracted a devoted following,
trained a skilled army of soldiers for the holy
war (jihad) against the religious
establishment in Mecca, and planned his return to the holy city.
In 630 A.D. (CE), Muhammad implemented his
plan, returning in force to Mecca. His
forces soundly defeated the army of the established priesthood and other
members of the traditional elite.
Muhammad died two years later having set the tone and the context for a
vigorous expansion of the new faith, first on the Arabian peninsula, and then
far beyond.
4. The
Five Pillars of Islam
Five sustained, lifetime commitments are
incumbent upon every devout Muslim. They
are known as the “Five Pillars of Islam,”
as follows: 1) to repeat with sincere regularity the Muslim Creed: “There
is no God (Allah) but God (Allah), and Muhammad is his Prophet.”; 2) to give alms to the poor and for religious
purposes, in the amount of about one-fortieth of one’s income; 3) to fast at the occasion of the holy month
of Ramadan; 4) to pray facing Mecca
five times each day; 5) to make a
pilgrimage to Mecca at least one time during the course of the able-bodied
life.
5.
Major Divisions of Islam
When Muhammad died, important figures in
Muslim community of Mecca, taking stock of social standing, closeness to the
Prophet, and leadership skill, opted for Abu Bakr as the first of the Caliphs
(Khalifa). The next two Caliphs
“Successors” chosen were ‘Umar and ‘Uthman.
Fourth came ‘Ali, the husband of Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima. The latter selection was none too soon for
some of the leaders who had touted Ali’s case from the very beginning and
harbored ill-feeling at his having been passed over. Those who had lobbied for Abu Bakr considered
themselves to be the followers of custom (Sunnah); those whose campaigned for ‘Ali and failed
considered themselves the ”party of Ali”(shi’at
‘Ali). Today these divisions between
the first group, Sunni Muslims, and the second group, Shi’ite Muslims,
persist.
And Shi’ites in general differ in quite a few
ways with Sunnis as to religious practice.
Shi’ites have a more flexible view of marital unions with regard to
permanency, with divorce as a viable option.
They believe that God also can and does reverse His decisions on
occasion, whereas Sunnis regard the decisions of God as eternally
immutable. But the historical dispute
over the succession to Muhammad lies at the heart of the Sunni-Shi’ite
division.
As the minority group harboring ill-feeling
for a perceived injustice, the Shi’ites have frequently been considered the
more irascible and militant of the two groups.
Events in Iran with the violent
overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the taking of American hostages, both
in 1979, buttressed that perception. But
recently, Sunni fringe groups have given evidence of a propensity to use
violence with the purported goal of spreading their interpretation of the will
of Allah throughout the world. Such
minority groups agitating for an idealized Islamic state include Al-Qaida
(worldwide movement originating in Saudi Arabia), Taliban (Afghanistan), and
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS;
also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL]).
Two Muslim groups that bear mention in a
discussion of Islam are the very different Sufis and the adherents of the
Nation of Islam.
The development of Sufism is traceable
to the life of the Persian poet, Jelaluddin Balkhi (1207-1273 A.D. (CE), who
became known as Rumi. Rumi had a sense
of spirituality as ecstatic experience.
Sufis do not consider themselves to be a denomination or sect,
identifying either as Sunnis or Shiites who seek direct experience with Allah
via music, dance, and poetry.
The Nation of Islam was founded as a
religious movement by Wallace Dodd Ford, who took the name Fard
(“Righteousness”) Muhammad. He
identified as Muslim but generated ideas divergent in many ways from orthodox
Islam. For example, orthodox Muslims,
whether Sunni or Shi’ite, consider Muhammad to be the Prophet of Allah, not in
any sense an incarnation of God or messianic in nature; Fard, though, claimed to be the Messiah. His successor, Elijah Poole, introduced
additional unorthodoxies, such as the idea that black people, as the first
humans created by God, would survive an apocalyptic event at the “end of
times”; white people, though, as later
creations possessing Satanic propensities, would be destroyed. In time, Elijah Poole took the name Elijah
Muhammad.
In the early 1960s, the civil rights
campaigner Malcom X (formerly Malcom Litte) joined the nation of Islam and
became the most charismatic spokesperson for the movement led by Elijah
Muhammad. From 1960s forward, there was
a trend toward more orthodox Muslim beliefs among members of the Nation of
Islam. Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam
and founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity in 1964; he was assassinated by a member of the Nation
of Islam in 1965. When Elijah Muhammad
died in the 1970s, his son (Warith Deen Muhammad) changed the name of the
movement to American Muslim Mission and advocated ideas consistent with Sunni
orthodoxy. A group calling itself the
Original Nation of Islam continued to espouse the doctrines of Elijah
Muhammad. In the year 2000 the two
organizations announced an end to their rivalry.
II.
Faiths Originating in India:
Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism
A.
Hinduism (Historic roots to 600 A. D./ CE)
1.
Arrival of the Aryans (c. 1500 B. C. [BCE])
In about 1500 B.C. (BCE), a people known as
the Aryans stormed into the India from the steppes of Central Asia and forever
changed the religious life of the subcontinent.
They brought with them belief in a pantheon of deities: Agni (fire), Indra (Thunder and Lightning),
and others that resembled in many features those of the Norse and Graeco-Roman
traditions.
In the course of the last centuries B.C.
(BCE), the Aryans worked their innovations upon ideas present in the land of
their adoption, in time producing the synthesis that became Hinduism, which
incorporates texts and ideas generated over many centuries. Hinduism rivals Judaism for ancient origins,
and like Judaism spawned other faiths drawing inspiration and many ideas from
the religion long embedded in the region’s culture.
Those in charge of leading ceremonies guided
by the hymns, chants, rituals, and spells recorded in , the Vedas were from the
priestly class called the Brahmins. The
Brahmins topped a
social order that was in itself an important
aspect of the Hindu tradition.
Hindus by tradition live with a firm idea of a
social order in which people have certain societal and occupational roles by
virtue of the family into which they are born.
Hindu texts present four broad varnas (social classes): 1) Brahmins, a priestly class; 2) Kshatriyas, comprised of warriors
and governmental leaders; 3) Vaishyas,
comprised of farmers and merchants; and
4) Shudras, servants who take care of routine tasks for members of the
upper three varnas.
Below the four varnas there are those who live as outcastes, considered the dregs
of society.
Within the four main varnas there are jati,
highly specific occupational categories, each with its own rules of conduct and
expectations as to social interactions.
In contemporary times, many Hindu thinkers and leaders have endeavored
to rework varna and jati in the context of democratic ideals
of social equality.
3.
Major Deities and important Theological Concepts
Hindus have a multiplicity of gods, three of
which are particularly important: Brahma
(the god of original creation), Vishnu (the god of preservation), and Shiva
(the god of individual creation and destruction). Other gods are often considered to be incarnations
(different fleshly manifestations) of those three deities (as in the case of
Rama and Krishna, incarnations of Vishnu);
many Hindus view the many deities as expressions of a unifying divine
principle
Hindus have made great contributions to
abstract religious thought: Brahman,
the World Soul, explored in the Bhagavad
Gita; atman, the individual human soul; Ultimate Reality beyond maya (illusion); karma, the balance of good and
bad deeds; samsara, the cycle of births and deaths that end with moksha (spiritual liberation) and the
achievement of the enduring blissful experience known as nirvana.
Hindus see the Four Permissible Goals of Life
as kama (physical
pleasure); artha (power)
dharma (moral
duty), and moksha (spiritual liberation). They perceive Four Stages of Life as bramacharin (student), grihastha (householder), forest-dweller, and sannyasin (wandering ascetic).
The sacred texts for Hindus include the Vedas:
Rig Veda (a collection of hymns) Sama Veda (compilation of chants), Yajur Veda (a manual of ritual) and the Artharva Veda (book of healing rites
and spells); the Upanishads (books of wisdom and philosophy); Mahabharata
(conveying the familial rivalry of the Pandavas and the Kauravas and including
the Bhagavad Gita (“Song of the
Adorable One”; and the Ramayana (a tale of Rama’s unfailing
fidelity to wife Sita). The monkey king
character of this tale, Hanuman, has become a deified object of bhakti (devotion) for whom his devotees
conduct puja, (worship) rituals, as
is the case for the multiplicity of Hindu gods beyond those of the main triad
and its incarnations.
B.
Buddhism
1. The
Life of Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 B. C. [BCE])
The story goes that there lived in the sixth
century B.C. (BCE) a good but naïve young prince in a northern kingdom of India
who one day in his early twenties ventured for the first time beyond the
palatial luxury that he had known all of his life to confront the realities of
sickness, old age, and death. Deeply moved,
Siddhartha embarked on a spiritual journey that led at last to Enlightenment
under the Bodhi Tree and the revelations of the Four Noble Truths
(suffering at the core of life, caused by desire, ended with the termination of
desire, achieved by the Noble Eightfold Path of Right Understanding, Right
Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Occupation, Right Effort, Right
Mindfulness, and Right Meditation). Upon
attaining these insights, Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha (Enlightened
One). He deferred entrance into nirvana
upon achieving moksha so that
he could continue his travels, now with the purpose of conveying his startling
revelations to others. The Buddha did
not seek deification, nor did he speak of God.
But adherents of his teaching did in time develop practices of puja in demonstration of bhakti, demonstrating the reverence in
which the Buddha was held.
The major divisions of Buddhism became
Theravada (Doctrine of the Elders) and Mahayana (Great Vehicle). Theravada Buddhism, practiced in Sri Lanka
(Ceylon) and the Southeast Asian nations of Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Laos,
and Cambodia, focuses on the support of pious monks who aspire to the spiritual
journey of the Buddha. Mahayana
Buddhism, practiced in East Asia (Vietnam, China, South Korea, and Japan),
takes generally less monk-focused, more salvation-oriented forms in which
adherents worship bodhisattvas (those who have attained Enlightenment but
dedicate themselves to the salvation of devotees). Schools of the latter include Pure Land (Qingtu [Chinese]; Chingdo
[Japanese]), Maitreya, Tientai (Chinese; Tiendai in Japanese), Nichiren,
and Zen.
Buddhism was the least successful of the
religions that developed in India on home turf, but by far the most popular in
other societies. Back in India, two
other religions other than the dominant Hinduism have been particularly
important: Jainism, in which the value
of ahimsa (nonviolence) in treatment
of all living things is paramount; and
Sikhism, featuring highly disciplined codes of behavior in a belief system
drawing from both Hindu and Muslim practice, revealed by Guru Nanak after an
mystical experience in1499 A.D. (CE).
III.
The Chinese Religious Complex
Traditional Chinese societies have
historically featured a Chinese a complex of religions of indigenous and
external origin: the belief systems of
Confucianism and Taoism (Daoism), which are Chinese in origin; and Mahayana Buddhism, which originated in
India. Most pervasive as a system of
ethical action and social practice is Confucianism.
A.
Confucianism (Confucius, 551-479
B. C. [BCE])
Confucianism is named for the great sage
Confucius (Kungzi), from the state of Lu in today’s Shandong Province, who
traveled China offering his services to the leaders of small states during the
Spring and Autumn Period of the Zhou (Chou) Dynasty. The wise instruction and sayings of Confucius
were collected by his acolytes and their
successors in a famous book known as the Analects. Confucius emphasized social harmony, in which
the emperor of all China or the ruler of a state display humanity (ren [jen])
toward his people, and the people performed their own jobs for the good of
their families, their communities, the state, and the ruler. Two adherents of Confucianism who made their
own philosophical contributions were Mengzi (Meng-tzu or Mencius), who stressed
the goodness of human nature, to be
nurtured through education; and Xunzi,
who considered people to have a propensity toward selfishness and immorality,
necessitating vigorous ethical instruction.
B.
Taoism (Daoism)
The great work of mystical poetry and
philosophy known as the Tao de ching (Daode jing , “The Way and its
Virtue”) begins, “The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.” This is because the Tao Is the
mystical force that one must approach through metaphor, analogy, and,
ultimately, by listening, feeling, and observing Nature; the great unfolding of the Tao, the Way, the
Great Principle that moves in all things cannot be understood through
conventional thought. The Tao works
according to the interplay of yin
(the female, dark, lunar, hidden, gentle force) and the yang (the male, bright, solar, visible, vigorous force) in all
things. Lao Tzu (Laozi), the philosopher to whom the Tao de ching is attributed, uses vivid imagery to demonstrate that
the apparently weak or empty is often the very strong or prospectively
full. The ruler who governs best,
according to Lao Tzu, is he who takes little action, moving in the world with
natural ease, in tune with the great Tao.
The other great work of Taoist philosophy is known as the Chang-tzu, for the namesake
writer who tells tales of traveling great distances in one’s dreams and
imagination without leaving one’s own room, and as one who awakes as a
butterfly but returns with natural ease to human form when timely. In the popular imagination, the emphasis on
nature and oneness with the Eternal Tao became a search for immortality and the
veneration of gods, ghosts, and ancestors.
C.
Mahayana Buddhism
People in Chinese societies incline toward the
Mahayana school of Buddhism. Most of the
sects of Mahayana Buddhism began in China.
This was true for Pure Land, Tiantai, and Chan. Of these three, Chan became more important in
Japan as Zen Buddhism, while the former two continued to have great impact on
the lives of the Chinese people.
Buddhism in China is deeply woven into the fabric of the Chinese
religious complex, wherein one is very likely at once to integrate
Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and purely popular religious expression into
one’s belief system, ethical code, and ritual practice.
The bodhisattva
tradition is very vigorous in Chinese societies, wherein people seek salvation
as devotees of benevolent beings such as Amitofo and Guanyin. Adherents seek some combination of their
benevolent grace bestowed on lives lived on earthly terrain; and an eternity in the Western Paradise or
Pure Land (Qingtu).
IV.
Polytheistic Religions
African Tradition, very different in particulars from one
village, clan, or region to another, tends toward certain similarities. In African the animistic tradition is
strong, with a propensity for
people to see supernatural efficacy in rocks,
trees, plants, the sun, the moon, and animals as various as all of those that
grace the continent. Ancestor worship
is very strong, whether directed toward very immediate kin from one’s own
family of nativity; or toward great
ancestors perceived to be the guiding spirits of great clan
associations. The reverence for nature
and family; for those propitiations that
will sustain occupations depending on nature;
and for those acts of reciprocity and justice that will sustain
relationships rooted I family and community is very strong in the African
tradition.
Ancestors, animals, and elements of nature
also loom large in the Native American Tradition. As in the case of African traditions,
particular practices differ from tribe to tribe, confederacy to confederacy,
nation to nation of Native American people;
but mnay similarities may be observed.
The animistic tradition is strong, with
particular reverence for the sun, moon, rain;
and for particular animals upon whom lives depended. The buffalo was particularly venerated on the
Great Plains of North America, and in many Native American societies the spirit
of the deer was an object of worship.
Jaguars, rabbits, coyotes, crows, and eagles were among the many other
animals to gain deified forms. Many
Native American people developed exquisite art work around natural and
supernatural spirits, the latter generating a particularly refined aesthetic in
the kachina figures of the Hopi
people.
The Shinto belief system of japan
features very prominent a great variety of animistic spirits known as kami.
Shinto is a religion intensely and exclusively identified with the
island of Japan. The island itself was
thought to have been created by the exertions of a brother-sister pair know as
Izanami and Izanagi, grandchildren of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu. Shinto aesthetics, along with those of the
imported religion of Zen, may be seen in the preference of the Japanese people
for the natural, the pure, and the elegantly simple.
And the Greek, Roman and Norse Pantheons
present vivid gods of polytheistic worship from great antiquity. The Greek gods congregated on great Mount
Olympus and were honored with their own temples, such as the famous Parthenon
(for worship of Athena. Gods from these
traditions were not typically small animistic creatures, plants, or rocks; they were, rather, the great forces of
nature: thunder and lightning; the sun, moon, and sea. They also embodied important qualities, such
as those found in the messenger, patron or muse of the artist, ruler of the
underworld, god of the feast, or divinities of the harvest and the hunt. The Greeks and Norse, especially, were
oriented to the open air, the sea, the power of fire. They sought immortality as much in heroic
action as in divine intervention, and they preferred the funeral pyre to the
cemetery.
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