Search Results (28)

This article examines the intertextuality and shared origins of two prominent narratives in classical Arabic literature: the story of Solomon’s Copper Carafes and the tale of The City of Brass. Both narratives, which later appeared in combined form in Alf Laylah wa-Laylah (One Thousand and One Nights), are laden with religious and mythological motifs that reflect broader cultural and theological concerns in the medieval Islamic world. This study attempts to answer the following question: “What are the common motives and ideas between the stories of Solomon’s Copper Carafes and The City of Brass in ancient Arabic literature?” By analyzing these stories as they appear in key sources of classical Arabic prose, this study investigates their shared themes and explores their potential common origins predating their Arabic textual forms. This study analyzes selected classical Arabic sources to demonstrate the narrative relationship between The City of Brass and Solomon’s Copper Carafes. It argues that both stories share a common origin predating their Arabic textual transmission. From a literary perspective, the tales of The City of Brass and Solomon’s Copper Carafes are prime examples of Islamic religious fiction, skillfully employing narrative devices to spread Islamic principles and beliefs. The stories are consistent with the core beliefs of Islam since they emphasize austerity, the certainty of death, and the primacy of monotheism. From a religious perspective, the intertwined stories of The City of Copper and Solomon’s Copper Carafes in Alf Laylah wa-Laylah provide a powerful example of how Islamic stories are inherently consistent with Islamic morality and beliefs. Full article

Between the eighth and ninth centuries, the world entered a second period of strong winter monsoons, which precipitated a series of recurrent natural disasters, including reduced summer rainfall and prolonged droughts. The various types of droughts that occurred in southeastern China are documented in historical records, which also include the official-led ritual prayers to the local deities that were conducted during these challenging periods. As evidenced in these historical records, officials implemented a series of measures to provide solace to the populace, including the restoration of shrines and temples and the offering of sacrifices and prayers to the local deities, such as the Wutang God 吳塘神 and the Chutan God 儲潭神. These actions were intended to leverage the influence of the local deities to mobilise labour and financial resources for the implementation of public works, including the reclamation of barren land and the construction of dikes and ponds. These initiatives ultimately proved instrumental in enabling the populace to withstand the adverse effects of disasters. This approach represents a distinctive strategy for coping with drought in ancient China. It may provide insights into how governments and non-governmental organisations can utilise the influence of religious beliefs to unite people in addressing the climate crisis in the present era. Full article

Dongba painting is an ancient art form created by the ancestors of the Naxi people. As a masterpiece of Dongba scroll painting, The Road to Heaven, exemplifies the simplicity and beauty of the primitive Dongba religion and stands as a unique treasure within Naxi painting, possessing significant value for both art and religious research. The Road to Heaven serves as an essential religious ritual artifact in the Dongba religion of the Naxi people. Utilizing the format of a long scroll painting, it depicts the Naxi people’s reflections on the origins of life; the relationships between humans, nature, and society; and the exploration of life’s ultimate destiny, thereby presenting a distinctive worldview. This article constructs a theoretical analysis framework based on an iconographic study of The Road to Heaven, exploring the unique artistic representation, aesthetic spirit, worldview, and religious origins of the Naxi people to gain a deeper understanding of the construction of their spiritual homeland. At the level of pre-iconographic description, this article primarily analyzes the subject matter and contents of The Road to Heaven, the materials employed in the painting, and its artistic features. The iconographic analysis examines the thematic elements of The Road to Heaven; the virtual world structure of the Dongba religion’s imagined realms of gods, humans, and spirits; and its simple, natural, vivid, and imaginative aesthetic style. At the level of iconological interpretation, in this article, the characteristics of the religious beliefs shown in The Road to Heaven and the main factors influencing its aesthetic spirit are analyzed. We reveal that although the Dongba religion intersects and integrates with Tibetan Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Daoism, and other ideologies and cultures, ancestor worship remains a dominant force guiding Naxi behavior. The unique natural environment, historical migrations, and multicultural exchanges of the Naxi people are the primary factors shaping their aesthetic spirit. By systematically analyzing The Road to Heaven from the perspective of iconology, this study provides evidence of its profound connections with Naxi social history, offering a more comprehensive view of the Naxi people’s aesthetic spirit and cultural connotations while presenting new approaches for researching The Road to Heaven. Full article

In recent years, religious activities have been employed to promote community industrial transformation and territorial revitalisation in fortified settlements along the southeast coast of China. This paper adopted a qualitative approach to study the community of Pujing, an ancient acropolis in Quanzhou, with the aim of analysing how community capital constructed through faith promotes community resilience. The findings of the study are as follows: (1) Pujing is a community system and organisation built upon religious beliefs; (2) the community utilises religious beliefs to construct a community network platform to promote community capital building and industrial transformation; and (3) religious activities are an integral part of daily life in the community, serving as a form of community capital. This paper argues that the Pujing community promotes community capital building by enhancing community cohesion and participation through religious activities. Ultimately, this fosters the ‘spiralling-up’ of community resilience. Full article

Culture consists of material and spiritual values and tools that a nation has accumulated in the historical process. In addition to the most basic contexts such as language and religion, contexts such as sporting activities, art, public medicine, and the public calendar are also important environments that reveal their own cultural elements. Among these contexts, religion is very effective in shaping the daily life of the individual and, thus, society through the rules it enjoins. Religion does not dominate only the world of belief of the individual. Through the world of belief, it also directs their relations with the social institutions they are involved in. Sport is one of the most important activities and social institutions that stand out with various functions in daily life, with wrestling being one of the branches of sports that have emerged as a result of the imitation of the struggle of human beings with nature and other creatures with which they share nature. In particular, those involved in the nomadic way of life had to hunt in order not to starve and fight in order to survive. Wrestling, which emerged as a result of these obligations, held an important place among all Turks in the world for a period of time, especially in the transition periods of life, such as birth, marriage, and death. One of the conditions set forth by women as a condition of marriage was that their suitor defeated them in wrestling. Examples of this condition are also observed in literary texts belonging to different periods when Turks were not yet acquainted with Islam and the concepts of halal and haram, which entered their lives together with Islam. According to the provisions of the Holy Qur’an, right/unprohibited thoughts and actions are associated with the words good and halal, while wrong/prohibited thoughts and actions are associated with the words sin and haram. In this study, the social and cultural phases of wrestling as a sports branch among Turks in the historical process will be evaluated on the basis of the history of religions and religious references, in addition to the literary texts belonging to historical periods when Turks were members of different religions, in the context of two events that have been experienced and reported in the news. The study was carried out using the method of document analysis, a method of qualitative research, and the data obtained by this method were evaluated using content analysis. The narratives of Alıp Manaş, Alpamış, Alpamıs, Alıpmenşen, and Bamsı Beyrek, which are evaluated in this context, belong to the periods when the Turks had not been introduced to Islam or had only recently been introduced to it. Alıp Manaş was collated from different Turkic tribes such as the Altais, Alpamış from the Uzbeks, Alpamıs the Kazakhs/Karakalpaks, Alıpmenşen the Bashkirs/Tatars, and Bamsı Beyrek the Oghuz Turks. The narratives of Kirmanshah, Köse Kenan-Dânâ Hanım, Bey Böyrek, Shah Ismail, and Yaralı Mahmut, which are evaluated in the study, belong to the periods when the Turks became Muslim en masse, and are related only among the Oghuz Turks. These narratives are included in the study because they are similar to Alıp Manaş, Alpamış, Alpamıs, Alıpmenşen, and Bamsı Beyrek and they belong to the period when Islam was largely established among the Turkish masses in Anatolia. The effect of the new religion on wrestling, which is a branch of sport, will be revealed through these narratives belonging to different tribes and religious periods. Once more, an event that occurred in recent history, and was the subject of the news, was subjected to document analysis, and content analysis was carried out through the text of the news and evaluated in the context of the study. This study aims to explain the effect of religious rules on sports branches with theological, folkloric, and sociological references based on ancient literary texts belonging to the Turks and two incidents which were experienced. Full article

Background: The belief in the evil eye is defined as the power to cause harm through ‘negative energy’ obtained through a glance. The practice of “medicine of the evil eye or sa mexina de s’ogu” by the “feminas e ominis de mexina” (healers) is so deeply rooted in the Sardinian culture that it influences health practices. Transcultural nursing, conceptualised by Madeleine Leininger, emphasises the importance of providing health care that takes into account patients’ cultural beliefs, practices and values. This study aims to explore, from the perspective of Madeleine Leininger’s transcultural nursing theory, the perception of the “feminas e ominis de mexina” practising “sa mexina de s’ogu”, in order to promote and raise awareness among health professionals of the importance of patients’ beliefs and cultures. Methods: A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted. Data were collected using semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The interviews were transcribed, read thoroughly, and analysed. Results: Fourteen healers were interviewed. Six main themes were extracted: (1) figure of the healer in its social context; (2) dynamics and methodology related to rituals; (3) effects of the Evil Eye; (4) ritual demand; (5) effectiveness of the ritual; and (6) comparison between the ancient and modern world. Conclusions: These findings suggest that healers act as central pillars in the connection between traditional medicine and religious practices. In response to the results obtained, it is essential to train healthcare personnel in transcultural nursing in order to provide care that is respectful and in harmony with the individual’s beliefs, promoting their comfort and well-being, and their health outcomes. Full article

The She (社) organization is an ancient Chinese folk religious group that was formed to worship the god of the soil through various activities. In contemporary society, the She organization plays a non-mainstream but important role in increasing social cohesion in China’s rural communities. This case study concentrates on the She organization in Songyang County to examine how its practices contribute to the Han and Non-Han peoples’ continued social cohesion and separate identities through observations, in-depth interviews, and the reviewing of local documentation materials. The findings are as follows: Firstly, as forms of social capital, the normative rituals, values, and informal situational networks of the She organization constitute the mechanisms for building trust, which ultimately promotes social cohesion between the Han and Non-Han peoples. Secondly, the coexistence between She and other belief systems is conducive to establishing the extended social capital of the She organization and maintaining the Han and Non-Han peoples’ separate identities according to their ethnic features. Finally, from the perspective of state-society relations, the social cohesion and continuation of the She organization in contemporary civil society are further interpreted as the results of state systems and policies. Full article

In the early Qing dynasty, the Jesuit missionary Louis de Poirot’s (He Qingtai 賀清泰, 1735–1814) Chinese rendition of the Bible, Guxin Shengjing (The Ancient and New Testament) (古新聖經), reshaped the figure of Abraham. Contrary to the depiction by Chinese Jews of the era, de Poirot portrayed Abraham as a sage, resonating with the traditional Chinese concept of the “five cardinal relationships” (rulers to subjects, fathers to sons, husbands to wives, among siblings, and between friends), and an exemplar of virtue and faith, devoid of human flaws. Key differences emerged in translating Abraham’s name, religious stature, and national identity, influenced by distinct belief systems, attitudes towards Confucian culture, and political dynamics. Analyzing these Catholic and Jewish perspectives on Abraham enhances our understanding of the Bible’s contextualization and informs contemporary religious localization. Full article

Toward the end of the Eastern Jin 東晉 (317–420) and the beginning of the Liu Song 劉宋 (420–479) Dynasties, a series of scriptures, what we now know as the ancient Lingbao scriptures (gu Lingbao jing 古靈寶經), emerged. The texts contained various kinds of celestial scripts, which were regarded as the archetype of all the Lingbao scriptures. Among them, the 3 most important were the 672 graphs of the Perfected Script on Five Tablets in Red Writing (Chishu wupian zhenwen 赤書五篇真文), found in the Scripture of Celestial Writing 天書經 (DZ 22), the 256 graphs of the Self-Generating Jade Graphs of the Secret Language of the Great Brahmā (Dafan yinyu ziran yuzi 大梵隱語自然玉字), found in the Inner Sounds of All the Heavens 諸天內音 (DZ 97), and the 64 graphs of the Jade Script of the Five Directions and Five Sprouts (Wufang wuya yuwen 五方五牙玉文), found in the Preface to the Five Talismans of Lingbao 靈寶五符序 (DZ 388). This article traces the origins of these Lingbao celestial scripts, analyzing and explaining the content of their images and text, as well as the beliefs and practices related to them. It then summarizes how Lu Xiujing 陸修靜 (406–477), a prominent Daoist of the Liu Song Southern Dynasty, classified and understood the various scripts in his Catalogue of Lingbao Scriptures (Lingbao jingmu 靈寶經目). Such discussions reveal some basic characteristics of Daoism that distinguish it from other religious traditions: the veneration of written symbols, the pursuit of longevity and immortality, and the synthesis of philosophy and belief. Beliefs concerning celestial writing and scripts occupy a pivotal position in the broader system of Daoist scripture and teachings. Full article

In most societies where Christianity is dominant, it has manifested itself in different ways, reflecting its admixture with indigenous religious practices, an admixture commonly seen in most African contexts. This is evidenced by overt syncretic practices and rarely covert syncretic practices that conceal the blending of beliefs, including belief in the mystical powers of water. In part, this explains why African Christian believers, particularly African Pentecostal believers in most African countries, often uncritically believe claims about holy water. To that end, this article examines the literature to uncover the existence of covert syncretic holy water in African Neo-Pentecostal Churches (ANPC), particularly in South Africa, where ANPC pastors make arbitrary claims about the power of holy water. Contrary to the apparent syncretism, claims about holy water as witnessed among ANPCs in South Africa, covertly combine elements of two belief systems (ancient African traditions and contemporary African Christianity), resulting in covert syncretic holy water. As little or no literature understands the covert syncretic holy water, the work of this paper warrants future research to further examine the covert syncretic holy water, particularly in relation to ANPC holy water claims. Full article

The research focuses on the Water Festival (Yarqa Aspiy), an ancient event in the Peruvian Andes, and which, as an Inca activity, survived the extirpation of idolatries by the Spanish colonization. The objective is to determine the importance of ancestral rituals in the communal work of this festival that, by merging with those of the Catholic religion, survives to this day. The participant-observation methodology in the Ccarhuaccoco community allowed us to investigate the details of this ancestral communal activity with its Andean rituals. It is concluded that this activity of Inca origin is in the process of extinction due to the growth of the Evangelical Church, which eradicates idolatry in its community practice. Additionally, thanks to religious tolerance, freedom of belief, and the necessary coexistence of water with the community, the festivity is maintained, although with variations in its ritual. Full article

Puppets, a kind of wooden figure whose movements are manipulated by artists, were frequently used in ancient Chinese singing and dancing activities and dramas. The uniqueness of substituting human beings for puppets has drawn tremendous attention from scholars. However, despite previous research on the long development process of puppet dramas, a considerable number of details remain neglected, and behind these details lies an abundance of complicated religious factors. Therefore, this paper uses several fragments as entry points in terms of puppet dramas’ modeling, materials, craft, rites, function, artists, organization, and other aspects to comprehensively analyze the influence of witchcraft, Daoism, and Buddhism on China’s puppet dramas. This research first unveils that a ferocious appearance and mahogany as a material, both used in puppets, are outer manifestations to reveal the magical power of witchcraft. Next, the rites performed in Li Yuan Jiao using ritual puppets were characterized by mystery in their implication and ambiguity in their religious sect, which was related to the attempt to hide their notorious identities as wizards on the part of the artists. Third, general puppet artists enjoyed a fairly high social status, conferred by their semi-religionist identity and the puppet dramas’ historical status. Finally, the improvement in the puppet-making process and the emergence of skeleton-style puppets embody the secularization of the spread of Buddhism. Full article

The religious color of folk beliefs and customs, a concrete and ideal artistic presentation of the Mazu (媽祖) image reflected in ancient books, folk customs and myths, endows Mazu with its unique image and humanistic connotation. The visual image, which implies the meaning of the thought, serves as important material for historical research. Therefore, this paper refers to and draws on three changing images of Mazu summarized from the perspectives of state and society, social function, and region of belief, respectively, by anthropological researcher Mr. Bozhong Li in his study of Mazu. Based on the analysis of Mazu image data, three significant images of Mazu are proposed, namely, the initial image, the transformation image and the typical image, along with a comprehensive analysis of its evolution and relationship. The image of Mazu in the statue is not only an artificially constructed social and cultural symbol but also a folk art symbol with religious and folk characteristics, and secular and emotional characteristics. It is also the visual form of Mazu’s intuitive concrete materialization, carrying a certain representative thought and concept, meaning and spirit, and the various pieces of information it contains is more intuitive than words, bringing the incomparable dissemination power of knowledge and information from the classics. Moreover, it can transcend language barriers and regional boundaries, stimulate personal inner original feelings, interact with Mazu’s beliefs and customs, and serve as an important medium for spreading Mazu’s beliefs and customs. Full article

In ancient China, all moral concepts are based on Li  禮  (ritual). Jing  敬  (reverence and respect) is one of the core categories of Confucian ritual spirituality and has rich ideological connotations. This study discusses how Confucianism realizes the ritualization of jing and constructs its symbolic system in the capping ritual to strengthen adult consciousness and social responsibility. First, based on relevant classic texts, we clarify the internal relationship between traditional ritual spirituality and jing. Then, we present an overview of the coming-of-age ceremony and discuss how religious beliefs and rituals incorporate Confucian ethical values and aesthetics. Finally, from the ritual uses of time, space, and behavior, we examine the meaning of jing in the specific practice of the traditional Chinese capping ritual and how it is conveyed to participants and observers through ritual implements and behaviors. The results show the capping ritual as an important life etiquette, and Confucianism injects the spirit of jing into every phase to cultivate an emotional response that will instantiate a moral ideal applicable to individuals and the state. In complex, modern societies, it is important to condense the Confucian spiritual connotation of jing and integrate it into modern coming-of-age rites. Full article

Numerous contemporary neopagan movements are attempts to revive or reconstruct ancient religious belief and practice. For instance, the worship of the ancient Norse gods has been restored to Iceland by the Asatru Fellowship. In this essay, I defend neopagan movements against the charge that ancient spirituality cannot be recovered in identifiable form. I note that today’s dominant religions, such as Christianity, also face questions of the continuity of identity and argue that if such problems are tractable for current religions, then, in principle, they are resolvable for neopagans. I further argue that there are three broad themes of spirituality that are identifiable in ancient pagan religion, and that these are permanent possibilities recoverable by modern people. I also defend the relevance and importance of these themes. Full article