THE IMPORTANCE, CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF THE BASIC CONCEPTS ADDRESSED BY MIRCEA ELIADE IN HIS STUDIES ON THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS

Abstract

Religion, which is first and foremost a state of belief and faith, in other words, a phenomenon unique to humanity, is the subject of research in the history of religions as well as many other disciplines within the scope of religious sciences. The discipline of history of religions not only fulfills an important function today because it comparatively analyzes the phenomenon of religion, religious issues, and the manifestations of the sacred in different religions, but also evolves in a unique line of thinking and understanding like other social sciences. Mircea Eliade is the most important philosopher and historian of religions who grew up in the 20th century in the field of History of Religions, progressed in the line of Rudolf Otto and made his main contribution to this discipline in the hermeneutic sense. Throughout his life, Eliade did not use the basic concepts he used in his work in the field of history of religions in a purely literal sense, but rather he gave these concepts more ontological, semantic, and meaningful significance as he approached them from a broader perspective. Eliade, who frequently uses concepts such as the sacred, profane, homo religiosus, symbol, initiation, image, myth, hierophany, mana, taboo, archetype in his studies and works, emphasizes the reality of these concepts and their importance for both primitive and modern societies and reveals their historical manifestations. In this study, the importance, classification and description of the basic concepts Eliade deals with in his works and their positions in the history of religions are tried to be explained from Eliade's perspective by processing them in depth with all their realities.