Worship Of Deities Research Articles

Beyond syncretism: hybridization of popular religion in contemporary thailand

this article challenges the dominant paradigm of ‘inclusive syncretism’ in the study of thai religion. by taking the worship of multi-original deities in the popular spirit-medium cults in contemporary thailand as a case study, it argues that practitioners and specialists working on thai religious studies need to refresh and update their analytical paradigm to incorporate the concept of ‘hybridization’.

Exorcism and Money: The Symbolic World of the Five-Fury Spirits in Late Imperial China (review)

Reviewed by: Exorcism and Money: The Symbolic World of the Five-Fury Spirits in Late Imperial China Paul R. Katz (bio) Qitao Guo . Exorcism and Money: The Symbolic World of the Five-Fury Spirits in Late Imperial China. Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley, China Research Monograph 55. Berkeley: The Regents of the University of California, 2003. 227pp. Paperback $18.00, ISBN 1-55729-077-6. Qitao Guo's study of a group of exorcistic deities known as the Five Furies (Wu-chang ) successfully explores the complex factors underlying the growth of communal religious traditions in late imperial China. The book's topic is a challenging one, as relatively little data exists on the Wuchang, and the history of their cult remains murky to this day. Guo is eminently qualified to conduct research on these deities, however, having written a Ph.D. thesis on Mulian operas in late imperial Huizhou (Anhui), which was also the area of China where the Wuchang cult flourished. His efforts have resulted in a work that clearly shows the Wuchang to be "Janus-faced" deities that could be represented as either ghosts or gods. In exploring the significance of this highly ambiguous cult, Guo focuses on what he defines as processes of "integration" and "gentrification" promoted by local elites, arguing that "By containing the demonic deity within a hierarchical pantheon, local elites managed to maintain their control over popular religious symbols, as well as over the common folk" (p. 9). In order to trace the historical development of the Wuchang, Guo relies on a wide range of sources, including scripts of Mulian operas, liturgical texts and paintings used for the worship of Anhui deities, and ethnographic accounts of Wuchang ritual dramas by scholars like Tanaka Issei and Mao Gengru . Exorcism and Moneyis divided into two main parts. Part 1, "Integrating Local Exorcism: The Evolution of the Symbolic World of the Five Furies," consists of three chapters. The first traces the origins of the Wuchang to ancient Nuo exorcistic rituals and Taoist liturgical traditions that arose during the Song dynasty, especially those featuring the exorcism of the Five Plague Spirits (Wu Wenshen ) and the worship of martial gods like Wen Qiong (Marshal Wen) and Zhao Gongming (Marshal Zhao) (pp. 29-30, 34-39). Guo makes the important observation that the Wuchang were worshipped as subordinates of Marshal Zhao, a factor that appears to have contributed to the growth of their cult (pp. 37-38). Chapter 2 focuses on the historical development of the Wuchang cult in light of religious policies implemented by the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang or Ming Taizu (1328-1398, r. 1368-1398). At the beginning of his reign, the emperor incorporated Wuchang into the cult of the state banner ( qidao), an act, Guo argues, that signaled "an imperial sanction [End Page 105]for popularizing the deity" (p. 41). Guo maintains that the actual popularization of the Wuchang did not commence until the mid-Ming and was due to a complex combination of factors, including socioeconomic and cultural conditions that allowed communal religious traditions to flourish as well as policies designed by Taizu to reform communal religious traditions, particularly the nationwide state sponsorship of temples/shrines to the City God (Chenghuang ) and the Earth God (She or Tudi ) and the establishment of Altars to the Vengeful Spirits (Litan ) at the county level. Chapter 3 contains a lengthy analysis of how Taizu's policies were transformed at the local level in Anhui, thereby contributing the to growth of the Wuchang cult. Guo places particular emphasis on what he terms the " ji er mingzhistrategy," which he glosses as "borrowing [official titles] to name [locally worshipped deities]" (p. 8). In effect, Guo argues, local elites both promoted and controlled communal religious traditions by "camouflaging" tutelary lineage deities with official titles originally intended for state-approved deities (like the City God), while also "subordinating" potentially illicit cults to the above-mentioned tutelary deities (pp. 58-59). He examines how ji er mingzhiprocesses shaped the growth of the Wuchang cult by presenting a case study of an extremely complex cult to a Guangde (Anhui) hero named Zhang...

As in Heaven, So on Earth: The Politics of Visnu, Śiva and Harihara Images in Preangkorian Khmer Civilisation

Analysis of the earliest sculpture and epigraphy of Southeast Asia reveals contrasting geographic patterns regarding the worship of Hindu deities. During the seventh century, efforts to consolidate political authority by Khmer rulers led to the deployment of Harihara, a god that embodied multiple conceptions of power and could serve as a ready statement of political and religious unification.

At the Origins of Christian Worship: The Context and Character of Earliest Christian Devotion

This volume makes a valuable contribution to the debate about the origins and development of Christianity. Larry Hurtado argues that understanding the nature of Christianity in the first century requires taking full account of the first Christians' devotional practices because worship was the context in which christological titles and other expressions of faith were given their specific meaning--a fact that has largely been ignored. Hurtado focuses on two distinguishing characteristics of earliest Christian worship: its exclusivity (rejecting the worship of other deities) and its binitarian shape (the veneration of Christ alongside God the Father). Setting early Christianity within the religious environment of the Roman era, Hurtado describes the features of Christianity that attracted followers and led them to renounce other religions. He then turns his attention to a more detailed discussion of the place of Christ in the monotheistic worship of the earliest Christians, showing that Christ figured in their public and corporate devotional life at a surprisingly early stage. The book concludes with some reflections for Christian worship today based on the historical features of early Christian devotional practices. Clear, illuminating, and relevant to the modern church, this volume will be of interest to scholars, pastors, students, and general readers seeking insight into the origins of Christian faith and practice.

A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé and the Alternative Spaces of Blackness

This is the first full-length English-language historical study of Candomblé, the Afro-Brazilian religion widely practiced in the Brazilian state of Bahia. Like much of the best recent literature on Afro-Brazil, Rachel Harding sets her subject in its broadest context of the African diaspora, pointing out the similarities that Candomblé shares with other forms of African-American religiosity, and informing her argument with an impressive theoretical apparatus drawn from anthropology, literature, and religious studies. In focusing on “the role of religion in the development of alternate meanings of human community and black identity within the matrix of slavery” (p. xvii), Harding’s book effectively addresses central preoccupations of African-diaspora scholarship.A Refuge in Thunder’s core and strength lie in the author’s careful and sophisticated analysis of 95 police documents that in some way refer to Candomblé between 1800 and 1888, which she sees as a nineteenth-century development in Afro-Bahian religiosity, characterized by the worship of multiple deities in a single house. She joins the by now well-established critique of early twentieth-century Nagô-centric scholarship in emphasizing that Candomblé grew out of more than just Yoruba culture. The primarily African leaders of these persecuted Candomblé communities and their African and Brazilian followers created “an Afro-Brazilian orientation to ultimate meaning,” responding to “an existential situation of extraordinary personal and collective disaggregation and oppression,” by focusing on healing and the cultivation of axé, the divine spirit (p. 77). In many ways, Harding’s story is thus, like so much recent scholarship on slavery, a tale of survival and even triumph in the face of unimaginable adversity, and police records, despite their biases, are once again revealed as an unmatched source, especially when handled by a skilled historian, and in this case, one as knowledgeable about contemporary Candomblé as Harding.But the source base may be insufficient to carry the argument. At best, the author can only infer that Candomblé participants were creating “black identity,” as opposed to, for example, a religious one, and she may be imposing late-twentieth-century racial categories on her earlier period. At the same time, this book reveals the limits imposed by the artisanal nature of historical research. To be sure, Harding must be commended for locating 95 documents on Candomblé, but this remains a small number of isolated references, and she struggles (valiantly) against this legacy of the “dis continuity” imposed on black culture in the New World. The definitive study of Candomblé awaits a collaborative effort among Bahia’s historians to pull together all the references to the religion scattered throughout Bahia’s archives and newspapers. Harding’s generous sharing of some of her documents (in both their original Portuguese and in translation) in the book’s appendix is a step in the right direction, but given professional imperatives to publish individually authored works, such a collaborative project unfortunately may be impossible.Indiana University Press should bring out a paperback edition, for the book’s length (161 pages of text) and documentary appendix make it an ideal classroom tool, but a few revisions will make it much more accessible to students. The document translations are sloppily done and sometimes misleading; students will find the text overburdened with Portuguese words (at least a fifth of the terms in the glossary have unambiguous English equivalents); and the absence of a map is curious in a book that emphasizes space in its argument. Experts will not be hampered by these matters, and they will recognize this as an important contribution, but not yet the definitive historical work on Candomblé.

African Gods in Contemporary Brazil

Religious systems brought over by African slaves in Brazil gave rise, especially throughout the 19th century, to Candomblé and other modalities of worship of African deities, especially of Yoruba deities known as orishas. This article seeks to provide a general description of Candomblé, of its main orishas, initiation rites and view of the world. It also proposes an interpretation of the fact that this Afro-Brazilian religion is no longer an ethnic religion exclusive to the black population, but a universal religion, without racial, ethnic or geographical barriers, a religion that congregates followers of all racial and social groups.

Thoughts on T’ang Buddhist Mountain Traditions and Their Context

THOUGHTS ON T'ANG BUDDHIST MOUNTAIN TRADITIONS AND THEIR CONTEXT Raoul Birnbaum I. Background In semi-legendary times1 Chinese rulers paid obeisance to certain powerful spirits by ritual worship at a circuit of five special mountains. Historical records of early imperial times relate that worship of potent deities at these special mountain sites was part of the state ritual practiced by Ch'in Shih Huang-ti1 Han Wu-ti1 and others. These historical accounts convey a vivid sense that the sacred mountains and associated deities were approached with feartinged awe. (1) In addition to the great national cults linked to the ruling elite, local cults at certain mountain sites also have a long history. Han and Six Dynasty literature contains many references to and accounts of such cults(2); surely far more local mountain cults existed than are documented in early literature1 and it is likely that the existence of such cults stretches back well before such literature was composed. Certain mountains in China were considered Isacred1" and they became centers for national and local cults. Others were not. ~y was this? Some of the sacred mountains are exceptional in their geology, towering over a plain or rising high above neighboring peaks 1 like lords in full command. Such mountains may have excited the admiration of persons closely attuned to the patterns of the landscape. Some mountains of this type were perceived as weather regulators, having much effect on the dispensation of rain to the spreading fields below. This, of course, was fundamentally important in an agricultural society. (Those with extended high-altitude experience will know that there are particular mountains around which--for various reasons--clouds gather on a regular daily basis in appropriate seasons. These clouds then slowly descend to release their rain, in a highly predictable manner.) Some mountains, it could be suggested, have strategic locations. Worship there by rulers and high officals, in the case of national cult centers, may have incorporated the function of extending or consolidating power. The geographical placement of the ancient five sacred mountains in part may be justified by this factor. In addition, there are inherently religious factors. These mountains were considered sacred in some cases as th~ physical form of a powerful and fecund spirit force, appearing to some as the physical manifestation or repository of great currents of energy. In some cases, these mountains 5 THOUGHTSON T'ANG BUDDHIST MOUNTAINTRADITIONS AND THEIR CONTEXT Raoul Birnbaum I. Background In semi 一 legendary times, Chinese rulers paid obeisance to certain powerful spirits by ritual worship at a circuit of five special mountains. Historical records of early im一 perial times relate that worship of potent deities at these special mountain sites was part of the state ritual practiced by Ch I in Shih Huang-ti, Han Wu-ti, and others. These historical accounts convey a vivid sense that the sacred mountains and associated deities were approached with feartinged awe. (1) In addition to the great national cults linked to the ruling elite, local cults at certain mountain sites also have a long history. Han and Six Dynasty literature contains many references to and accounts of such cults(2); surely far more local mountain cults existed than are documented in early literature, and it is likely that the existence of such cults stretches back well before such literature was composed. Certain mountains in China were considered 11sacred,11 and they became centers for national and local cults. Others were not. 血 y was this? Some of the sacred mountains are exceptional in their geology, towering over a plain or rising high above neighboring peaks, like lords in full command. Such mountains may have excited the admiration of persons closely attuned to the patterns of the landscape. Some mountains of this type were perceived as weather regulators, having much effect on the dispensation of rain to the spreading fields below. This, of course, was fundamentally important in an agricultural society. (Those with extended high-altitude experience will know that there are particular mountains around which--for various reasons--clouds gather on a regular daily basis in appropriate seasons. These clouds then slowly descend to release their rain, in a highly prl"dictable manner.) Some mountains, it...

Nerccas: saint-martyr worship among the Muslims of Kerala

Saint worship is a form of religious expression common to most Islamic societies, but it is especially important in the religious life of the Māppiḷas, the Muslims of Kerala State, South India. The Māppiḷas' largest public festivals are a variant of saint worship known as nerccas. These are expensive and elaborate ceremonials which combine nominally Islamic elements with certain features of indigenous folk festivals. Thus, while the focal point of each nercca is the reverence shown to a pīr, shaykh, or shahīd, all the festivals are conducted within a ritual framework derived from the worship of folk deities in Kerala. The nerccas are important just because of this hybrid character; that is, they provide examples of an especially complex variety of Islamic saint and martyr worship. However, the festivals are equally important when they are viewed solely as a source of information about Kerala Muslims, for the Māppiḷas possess only the most fragmentary records concerning their own past and the nerccas offer one of the most important means by which it is possible to study the history and religious culture of this important Muslim community.

A Bibliography of Writings Contributory to the Study of Chinese Folk Religion

y the term religion, I refer to the eclectic religious beliefs, practices, and institutions that have been found in varying forms and degrees all over China and among nearly all Chinese. It is the entire Little Tradition of religion in China and overlaps with folk Buddhism, folk Taoism, ancestor worship, the worship of deities and demons, and so forth. I do not deal with the Great Tradition of Chinese philosophy, ethics, or political thought, although I have included writings on moral, social, and religious values when they appear to be relevant to the theological aspects of folk religion. Since folk religion covers a broad spectrum of beliefs, practices, and institutions, information on the many aspects of this subject can be found among works on Chinese folklore, mythology, literature, philology, anthropology, art, and history as well as in writings on the obvious features of folk religion. Therefore I have included a few items on folklore and mythology as well as on the ritual and cultic features of Buddhism and Taoism, the state sacrifices to Heaven and Earth or to the deities, the Tay-shan' cults, and the veneration of Confucius and other semi-divine masters or heroes. The books and articles listed here are all secondary materials written in English, French, or German. Their scholarly value is very uneven ranging through missionary diatribes, journalistic curiosities, and observations of old China hands, to the researches of well-trained scholars. In fact, some of these works can tell us more about the viewpoints and values of the foreigners in China than about Chinese folk religion. I have tried to verify the bibliographic data for

The Jishu Followers and the Worship of Shintoist Deities

The Jishu Followers and the Worship of Shintoist Deities

The Focus of Cuban Santeria

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Focus of Cuban SanteriaWilliam R. BascomWilliam R. Bascom Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 6, Number 1Spring, 1950 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/soutjanth.6.1.3628691 Views: 110Total views on this site Citations: 24Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in the Southwestern Journal of Anthropology (1945-1972), which is continued by the Journal of Anthropological Research (1973-present). PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Amanda Villepastour The legacy of Ortiz’s Yorubization of Lucumí: Translation as transculturation, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 11, no.11 (Jun 2021): 153–173.https://doi.org/10.1086/714380Amanda Villepastour The Cuban Lexicon Lucumí and African Language Yorùbá: Musical and Historical Connections, (Oct 2019): 2575–2602.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02438-3_183Manfred Kremser »Shango is a Powerful Fellow!«. Repräsentation spiritueller Macht in afrokaribischen Kulturen, (Apr 2019): 189–202.https://doi.org/10.14220/9783737005142.189Amanda Villepastour The Cuban Lexicon Lucumí and African Language Yorùbá: Musical and Historical Connections, (Mar 2019): 1–28.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_183-1Amanda Villepastour The Cuban Lexicon Lucumí and African Language Yorùbá: Musical and Historical Connections, (Jul 2019): 1–28.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_183-2Stephan Palmié When Is a Thing? Transduction and Immediacy in Afro-Cuban Ritual; or, ANT in Matanzas, Cuba, Summer of 1948, Comparative Studies in Society and History 60, no.44 (Oct 2018): 786–809.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417518000294Rex Nettleford Caribbean Culture: Paradoxes of the 1990s, (Feb 2018): 73–89.https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429501821-10Pablo F. Gómez Caribbean stones and the creation of early-modern worlds, History and Technology 34, no.11 (Sep 2018): 11–20.https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2018.1516849 Bibliography, (Oct 2017): 577–676.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405166607.biblioHENRY B. LOVEJOY, OLATUNJI OJO ‘LUCUMÍ’, ‘TERRANOVA’, AND THE ORIGINS OF THE YORUBA NATION, The Journal of African History 56, no.33 (Oct 2015): 353–372.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853715000328Erica S. Moret Trans-Atlantic Diaspora Ethnobotany: Legacies of West African and Iberian Mediterranean Migration in Central Cuba, (Jul 2012): 217–245.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0836-9_9Martin HOLBRAAD Truth beyond doubt, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2, no.11 (Mar 2012): 81–109.https://doi.org/10.14318/hau2.1.006Joseph M. Murphy Yoruba Religions in Diaspora, Religion Compass 4, no.77 (Jun 2010): 400–409.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2010.00223.xChristine Ayorinde Writing Out Africa? Racial Politics and the Cuban regla de ocha, (Jan 2007): 151–166.https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230609938_9 Elizabeth Pérez David H. Brown, Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro‐Cuban Religion Pérez, History of Religions 45, no.22 (Jul 2015): 185–188.https://doi.org/10.1086/502701Martin Holbraad EXPENDING MULTIPLICITY: MONEY IN CUBAN IFA CULTS, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11, no.22 (Jun 2005): 231–254.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2005.00234.xMartin Holbraad, Estimando a necessidade: os oráculos de ifá e a verdade em Havana, Mana 9, no.22 (Oct 2003): 39–77.https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-93132003000200002Andrew Apter On African Origins: Creolization and Connaissance in Haitian Vodou, American Ethnologist 29, no.22 (Jan 2008): 233–260.https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.2002.29.2.233Katherine J. Hagedorn Long day's journey to Rincón: From suffering to resistance in the procession of San Lázaro/Babalú Ayé 1, British Journal of Ethnomusicology 11, no.11 (Jan 2002): 43–69.https://doi.org/10.1080/09681220208567328George Brandon The Uses of Plants in Healing in an Afro-Cuban Religion, Santeria, Journal of Black Studies 22, no.11 (Jul 2016): 55–76.https://doi.org/10.1177/002193479102200106Jorge Duany After the Revolution: The Search for Roots in Afro-Cuban Culture, Latin American Research Review 23, no.11 (Oct 2022): 244–255.https://doi.org/10.1017/S002387910003483XDavid Kowalewski The catholic church and the Cuban regime, Religion in Communist Lands 11, no.11 (Jan 2008): 67–72.https://doi.org/10.1080/09637498308431059 References, (): 323–345.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822375319-013 Melville J. Herskovits The Present Status and Needs of Afroamerican Research, The Journal of Negro History 36, no.22 (Dec 2017): 123–147.https://doi.org/10.2307/2715415

Jainism; or, the Early Faith of Asoka

THIS is a book which will be of great interest to orientalists and students of the science of religion and is likely to occasion a good deal of controversy. It embodies two articles published by the author in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, the first of which endeavours to show that the Greek monograms on Bactrian coins represent dates, the hundreds being omitted in imitation of the Hindu loka kala, or as when we write '77 for 1877. The dates, Mr. Thomas thinks, refer to the Seleucid era (B.C. 312), and we are therefore able to place the Indo-Scythian dynasty of Kanishka, whose monuments at Mathurâ have recently been discovered, from B.C. 2 to A.D. 87. The second article challenges the usual opinion that Jainism is a late corrupt form of Buddhism and seeks to prove that Buddhism itself was originally a Jainist sect and that Asoka, the Constantine of India, was a Jainist before he was a Buddhist. His grandfather, Chandra Gupta or Sandracottus, is claimed by the Jainists, and their claim is supported by the testimony of Megasthenes; according to Abúl Fazl, Asoka himself introduced Jainism into Kashmir, and the gradual passage of his belief from Jainism to Buddhism may be detected in his rock and pillar edicts. The Bhabra edict, late in his reign, first contains positive Buddhism, and his earlier Jainist title of Devánampiya or “beloved of the gods,” is dropped as incompatible with a creed which denied the existence of any God at all. The Maháwanso has allowed a reference to “the twenty-four supreme Buddhos”—the number of the Jainist saints—to remain in its text, and the symbols of the Buddhas are borrowed from their Jainist prototypes. The existence of Jainism at the beginning of the Christian era is proved by the recent discoveries at Mathurâ, where the figures are nude as among the Jainists, not clothed as among the Buddhists, and the Kanishka coins lately found at Peshâwar are further evidence of Saivism and the worship of many deities, Indian, Persian, Greek, and even Roman, but not of atheistic Buddhism. It may be added that Mr. Thomas believes that in these Kanishka coins we have evidence of the soldiers of Crassus having been settled in the extreme north-west of India.