Ten conference papers which focus on the literature's attempt to regain control and rejuvenate the indigenous traditions of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.

Conference proceedings on Mongolian contributions to Buddhist knowledge.

Research monography about the works of famous Mongolian writer, scholar B. Rinchen.

History of Mongolian philosophy, intellectual life, and politics; covers until 14th century.

History of Mongolian philosophy, intellectual life, and politics; covers until 14th century.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 335-358 [Access article in PDF] Between East and West: Hegel and the Origins of the Russian Dilemma Ana Siljak Nikolai Berdiaev, the eminent twentieth-century Russian philosopher, wrote that the "problem of East and West" was an "eternal" one for Russia. 1 Attempting to make sense of the violent upheavals that shook Russia in 1917, Berdiaev believed that the source of Russian (...) troubles lay in the "inconsistency of the Russian spirit" due to the "conflict of the Eastern and Western elements in her." 2 Russia, he argued, always contained within its wide territory an invisible and shifting border between two continents, and thus Russian society was forever torn between two cultures. Berdiaev insisted that Russia could not discover its true calling or its place in the world until it resolved its internal conflict between East and West. 3Berdiaev was contemplating the course of the nineteenth century, when Russia's geographical destiny had deeply troubled Russian intellectuals. In the late 1830s Russian thinkers began their minute analyses of cultural and historical sources, hoping to determine the essential character of their nation and believing that their research would enable them to predict Russia's future. Often, diverse questions of progress and stagnation, tradition and innovation, and the individual and society were all framed within this overarching problem of East versus West.It is tempting to see this Russian dilemma as longstanding and natural, given Russia's position between two continents. Indeed, many recent scholars have argued that Russian encounters with Asia, taking place within the framework of Russia's territorial expansion eastward, forced Russians to examine their relationships [End Page 335] with the Eastern, Asian world. 4 It is true that European geographers and historians have debated the location of the border between Asia and Europe since the Middle Ages. But before the nineteenth century this ambiguity hardly troubled Russian minds. The Muscovite state of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, for example, was well acquainted with cultures and lands to its East, engaging in trade and diplomatic relations with Muslim Tatars and others. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that Muscovy was concerned about its position between Eastern and Western countries. 5 Even Peter the Great, whom historians have credited for bringing European customs into Russia, was little concerned with the European/Asian divide in Russian culture. For him the most important geographical question was Russia's place among the northern states, and he was particularly obsessed with Sweden as Russia's primary military rival. 6After Peter's reign, educated Russians, as they became increasingly acquainted with Western European culture, experienced their first pangs of envy and self-doubt in the face of perceived European superiority. Nonetheless, throughout the eighteenth century few cultured Russians had trouble embracing a diverse historical legacy and national character--German, Slavic, Asian. After all, Europeans themselves were proud of their barbarian past. Peter the Great's chief historian, V. N. Tatishchev, wrote with full confidence and little concern that the Russian empire was located "in both Europe and Asia," noting that though more Russian people lived in Europe, Russia had more territory in Asia. In passing he mentioned that "where the border between these two large and most important cultures is located, no one has as yet determined for certain." 7 According to him, the Slavic people as a whole could be divided into Asian and European branches, thus both cultures were of importance in Russian history. 8The first of the great nineteenth-century Russian historians, Nikolai Karamzin, was proud of Russia's diverse heritage. Russia, he wrote, [End Page 336] raising its head between the Asiatic and European kingdoms, represented within its civic life the characteristics of these two parts of the world: a mixture of old Eastern customs, brought by the Slavs into Europe and renewed, so to speak, by our long connection with the Mongols; Byzantine customs borrowed by the Russians along with the Christian religion, and some German customs imparted by the Varangians.... 9This cultural "mixture... (shrink)

_Surprisingly modern essays on the unity of all monotheistic regimens by a medieval philosopher_ Written in the mid‑thirteenth century for the newly appointed governor of Isfahan, this compact treatise and philosophical guidebook includes a wide‑ranging and accessible set of essays on ethics, psychology, political philosophy, and the unity of God. Ibn Kammūna,a Jewish scholar writing in Baghdad during a time of Mongol occupation, was a controversial figure whose writings sometimes incited riots. He argued, among other things, the commonality of all (...) monotheisms, both prophetic and philosophical. Here, for the first time in English, is a surprisingly modern work on the unity of all monotheistic regimes from a key medieval philosopher. (shrink)

Buryats are a community that is a tribe of Mongols and lives in the Altay geography, has encountered various religions throughout history. Although Lake Baikal is located within the borders of the Irkutsk Autonomous Region, it has a very important place for the Buryat community. For the Buryat community, which adheres to their traditional beliefs, Olkhon Island, located in Lake Baikal, is seen as a legacy and sacred place left by their ancestors. According to the belief, Olkhon Island is (...) considered one of the most important global poles of shamanic energy for the Buryat community, thought to provide a connection with the metaphysical realm through the special areas it contains. Olkhon Island, including various mythological elements and legends, has been home to Altay communities. Some of beliefs about Olkhon Island are considered valuable in terms of showing the common elements of the Mongolian and Turkish communities that have lived together throughout history and being able to reveal their interaction with each other. In this article, the relationship of Olkhon Island with the sacred and its importance in terms of world cultural heritage is evaluated by using descriptive and comparative methods. Olkhon Island will provide valuable data on the basis of the beliefs of the mentioned communities when evaluated in the context of their interaction and connection with the outside world being quite limited, the preservation and maintenance of the traditional beliefs of the Turkish and Mongolian communities. (shrink)

From a largely Western phenomenon, the “animal turn” has, in recent years, gone global. Animals and Human Society in Asia: Historical, Cultural and Ethical Perspectives is just such a timely product that testifies to this trend.But why Asia? The editors, in their very helpful overview essay, have from the outset justified the volume's focus on Asia and ensured that this is not simply a matter of lacuna filling. The reasons they set out include: the fact that Asia is the cradle (...) of early human settlement and animal domestication; Asia encompasses an extreme diversity of closely connected ecosystems and human cultures; Asia is the place where the world's major religions originated; and, as in other parts of the world, Asia's use of animals for food and other utilitarian purposes constitutes a prominent feature of its culture. All of these factors, they argue, made Asia a unique lab for the exploration of major developments in human civilization and the complexities of human-animal interactions.Based on these premises, the book is divided into four parts, each concentrating on areas that the editors consider to have paramount significance in world history: Part I, “Hunting and Domestication”; Part II “Animals as Food”; Part III “Animals at War”; and Part IV “Animals in Culture and Religion.” As many good works on animal studies do, the volume adopts a truly cross-disciplinary approach, uniting scholars from disciplines as diverse as archaeology, history, anthropology, art, religion, literature, and cultural studies. It too takes an interregional approach and covers a vast geographical area, stretching from the western edge of Asia in the Levant to Central Asia, where once roamed the horses of the nomadic pastoral tribes, to the other end of Asia, including India, China, and Japan. Temporally impressive as well, the work takes us from the deep history of the Paleolithic period up to the contemporary world, exploring the diverse roles that a wide range of animals—horses, donkeys, camels, elephants, tigers, and so forth—have played in Asia's rich and unique past and present.Strong in archaeology, Part I, “Hunting and Domestication,” responds to the much-called for “deep” or “coevolutionary” history of human-animal relations in recent years. The three chapters discuss, respectively, the roles that proboscideans have played in the diet and culture of early societies in Paleolithic China and beyond; the ways in which animals of all sizes have been increasingly integrated into the diet, daily uses, trade, and warfare in Holocene Negev; and the diversifying roles played by donkeys in the early Bronze Age in Southern Levant as a food source, a means of transport and in ritual sacrifices. Together, they demonstrate, with reference to telling archaeological evidence how the early societies in this region have been highly dependent upon the increasingly sophisticated interactions with and uses of mega-herbivores in the protracted and by no means clear-cut transition from hunting and herding towards the agricultural way of life, affirming the co-existing and co-constituting relations between humans and other animals in the deep past of Asia.The chapters in the section on “Animals at War” equally reveal the crucial roles that animals have played in the military sphere, as either a practical war technology or a show of military power. “Elephants in Mongol History” revisits the thesis of elephant-mounted troops in South and Southeast Asia as a barrier to Mongol expansion. Through its lively account of the pivotal battles in Mongolian history, especially that against India and China, it illustrates with great success the complex interactions between animals (especially elephants, horses, and humans), technology, and the geographical environment, which jointly exercised their influence on the outcome of warfare and degree of success of political rule. Turning away from the dynamic of warfare, the following two chapters explore the biopolitical question of the management of the horse as a bio-resource in the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria (1250–1517) and early Ming Dynasty China, respectively. The first one places its focus on the breeding, procurement, and feeding of the horse subjects in question, while the latter concentrates on the human organization of various resources for the upkeep of government horses—a conventional area of study called “horse administration” in the institutional history of the government in China.The last section, “Animals in Culture and Religion,” examines the changing images of apex predators, such as lions and tigers, in Buddhist perceptions from South Asia to East Asia; the cult of the Horse King in late Imperial China; and the significance of animal signs in Mongolian historiography. They represent an established approach in animal studies that seeks to understand different aspects of human culture through symbolic or metaphorical animals. Instead of treating the animals discussed as mere abstractions, which has been a frequent criticism of works that adopt this approach, the relations between the symbolic animals and their prototype in the natural world were attentively explored. The essay on the cult of the Horse King, for example, closely links the wax and wane of the cult since late imperial China with the changing use and subsequent disuse of the actual horses in agriculture, transportation, commerce, and quotidian life. Yet, classic as these essays on symbolic animals are, one does feel slightly unsatiated when coming to the end of this section, which also marks the end of this volume. Having been reminded early in the introductory essay that Asia was “a major site for the emergence of moral teachings and ethical guidance on the treatment of animals” and how this legacy “still affects the lives of billions of humans to this very day,” one feels naturally rather let down that no article in this volume directly addresses this vital ethical dimension, especially since it belongs to a series on “animal ethics.”Indeed, regarding the task of placing either the nonhuman animals or the ethical relations between humans and other animals center stage, the essays in this volume achieve only varying levels of success. Some authors exhibit a more acute awareness of what “animal studies” or “animal ethics” might entail epistemically and methodically and experiment by paying closer attention to the species-specific characteristics, experience, and agency of nonhuman animals in order to cast off the deified anthropocentrism previously ruled in humanist scholarship. However, others have made no such attempt. For example, in Part II of “Animals as Food,” an essay on the production and consumption of milk in contemporary China, albeit alert to the issue of health hazards to consumers, omits any consideration of the subject from the dairy cows’ perspective under the modern intensive farming system. Moreover, otherwise superb research on the tuna-fishing industry in Japan, with its insightful discussion of the nexus between knowledge economies and imperial politics, too passes over any discussion of the fate of the tuna, whether collectively as a group of living organisms containing 15 species or individually as animals with an embodied experience. One does ponder whether these essays would fit better in a volume on the cultural history of food or on the entwining history of knowledge production, economics, and politics, which conventionally position human interests at the center of research.Taken as a whole, this is an impressive volume that directs our attention to the hitherto understudied world of Asia in animal studies. The long durée, with its interdisciplinary and interregional approach, also most powerfully presents a past in Asia that could not have been the same without the participation of animals at every level, from everyday life to the shaping of cultural values, the construction of belief systems, the building of a national identity, and even the rise and fall of regimes. Scholars and students interested in expanding the frontier of our understanding of the world with a more inclusive “we” should find a wealth of interesting subjects on which to build further research. Finally, the volume also presents a fitting occasion for all scholars committed to animal studies to consider the grave challenge confronting the field that arose alongside its growing respectability and rapid expansion: Should it be oriented toward the destabilization of our previously anthropocentric conception of the world? Or should no such perimeter be imposed, as in this volume? The overall breadth and limitations of this volume leave one pondering this issue. (shrink)

Path dependency is a most valuable tool for understanding Russian history since 1480, which coincides with the ending of the “Mongol yoke,” Moscow’s annexation of northwest Russia, formerly controlled by Novgorod, and the introduction of a new method for financing the cavalry—the core of a new service class. The cavalry had to hold off formidable adversaries for Muscovy to retain its independence. Russia in 1480 was a poor country lacking subsurface mineral resources and with a very poor climate and soil (...) for the support of agriculture. These basic problems inspired autocratic power and by 1515 an ideology was in place justifying it. Religion, literature, and law were employed to support the autocracy. A variant of a caste society was created to support the army. This made up the substance of the first service-class revolution in which all resources were mobilized to support a garrison state. After 1667 the external threats to Muscovy diminished, but the service class kept its privileges, especially the land fund and the peasant-serfs. Russia faced major foreign threats again in 1700 and in the 1920s and 1930s. Those threats precipitated the second and third service-class revolutions. The second and third service-class revolutions broadly paralleled the first. Reinvigorated service classes were created with state institutions to support them. As society became more complex, so did the service classes and their privileges. Ideologies were converted into devices to support the infallible autocratic ruler and his elites. Almost the entire population was bound to state service, either directly, working to support the service state, or paying taxes. The church and clergy were harnessed first by Peter’s Holy Synod and then Stalin’s Department 5 of the Secret Police after he revived the church during World War II. Writers and artists were also put into uniform, until they finally rebelled—but the arts retained their civic functions, first supporting the regime, and then criticizing it. Finally, law retained its traditional programmatic functions in regimes themselves beholden to no law. As the foreign threats diminished, the service classes lost their function, but the elite servicemen kept their privileges as the service states disintegrated and the service classes lost their collective élan. Both the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Empire collapsed almost without a whimper. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Divine Grace and the Play of OppositesTrent PomplunIn Prisoners of Shangri-la: Tibetan Buddhism and the West, Donald Lopez treats his readers to a provocative but entertaining history of Western fantasies about Tibet. Lopez discovers at the root of these fantasies a "play of opposites" between "the pristine and the polluted, the authentic and the derivative, the holy and the demonic, the good and the bad."1 Not surprisingly, Catholic missionaries (...) to Tibet play an important role in Lopez's history, and he depicts them as prisoners to the play of opposites par excellence. Truth be told, it is difficult to deny his charges; in a passage quoted by Lopez, the seventeenth-century Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher describes Tibetans' veneration of the Dalai Lama in these words:Strangers at their approach fall prostrate with their heads to the ground, and kiss him with incredible Veneration, which is no other than that which is performed upon the Pope of Rome; so that hence the fraud and deceit of the Devil may easily and plainly appear, who by his innate malignity and hatred, in way of abuse hath transferred, as he hath done all the other Mysteries of the Christian Religion, the Veneration which is due unto the Pope of Rome, the only Vicar of Christ on Earth, unto the superstitious Worship of barbarous people.Whence as the Christians call the Roman High-Priest Father of Fathers, so these Barbarians term their false Deity the Great Lama, that is, the Great High-Priest, the Lama of Lamas, that is, the High-Priest of High-Priests, because that from him, as from a certain Fountain, floweth the whole form and mode of their religion, or rather mad and brain-sick idolatry, whence also they call him the Eternal Father.2Lopez explains this passage in light of what he calls the "doctrine" of demonic plagiarism, a relatively common belief among Christian theologians that resemblances between Christianity and other religions could be explained as parodies of the true faith authored by the Devil. Athanasius Kircher undoubtedly believed in such parodies; in point of fact, he had much stronger views about them than many of his contemporaries. But Lopez continues,Why must this appearance be demonic? The answer derives in part from the Christian Church's claim to historical and ontological particularity. It is the [End Page 159] task of the missionary to transmit the word of particularity to those realms where it has not spread, to diffuse it from its unique point of origin. To carry its accoutrements from Rome in a time and to a place they could not possibly have been taken before, and to find them already there, suggests the workings of a power beyond history, which could only be seen as demonic.3I would like to take issue with this unfortunately misleading presentation of Christian theology. No orthodox Catholic theologian believed that such appearances were necessarily demonic, nor did any think that demonic influences ruled out other, more positive, ones. A cursory reading of the writings of Ippolito Desideri, the Jesuit adventurer and missionary who lived in Tibet from 1716 to 1721, should demonstrate that Roman Catholic theologians developed several complex theories about the resemblances between Christians and non-Christians in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. If we situate the Jesuit missionary squarely in the theological currents of the seventeenth century, especially in debates about the salvation of non-Christians, I think we can come to see that the views of Roman Catholic missionaries about Tibetans, and non-Christians in general, were considerably more complex than Lopez imagines.Ippolito Desideri on the Salvation of Tibetan BuddhistsIppolito Desideri arrived in Lhasa on March 18, 1716. As a result of his acquaintance with Khang chen nas and Don grub tshe ring, Desideri quickly gained access to the court of the Qōśot Mongol chieftain Lha bzang Khan.4 Much to the missionary's delight, the Khan granted his request to preach the Gospel in Tibet with great enthusiasm and—if we are to believe Desideri's account—no small amount of paternal sentimentality. In order to facilitate his preaching, Desideri composed a small book explaining the errors... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Jesus the World-Protector:Eighteenth-Century Gelukpa Historians View Christianity1Michael J. SweetThe assumption that religion was so seamlessly woven into non-Western and preindustrial cultures that it was not even distinguished as a separate entity, let alone regarded as an object for study, has been a commonplace among Western scholars of religion for some decades.2 From this point of view, which can be broadly characterized as postmodernist and postcolonialist, the concept of religion (...) "is not a native category... it is a category imposed from outside... it is the other... colonialists who are solely responsible for the content of the term."3 This is a somewhat reductionistic and Eurocentric perspective that ignores the universal human capacity to empathically understand other belief systems.One counterexample to this school of thought is found in the works of three eighteenth-century religious historians, all of whom were learned monks in the Gelukpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism: Gombojab (Mgon po Skyabs, late seventeenth century–after 1766),4 Sumba Khembo (Sum pa Mkhan po Yes shes dpal 'byor, 1704–1776), and Tuken (Thu'u Bkwan Blo bzang Chos kyi Nyi ma, 1737– 1802), authors of The History of Buddhism in China, The Auspicious Wish-Fulfilling Tree,5 and The Crystal Mirror,6 respectively. These scholars had clear conceptions of their own and other religious systems (Tib.: chos lugs), and compared to earlier Tibetan accounts they present relatively tolerant evaluations of other religious philosophies—for example, Chinese Buddhism, Daoism, and the Literati Tradition (Ru jiao, "Confucianism")—while asserting the superiority of the Gelukpa form of Tibetan Buddhism.7As a case in point, we will see how they describe and evaluate Christianity, a religion that was quite foreign to them and that they appear to have understood only imperfectly. Earlier Tibetan Buddhist religious histories, of which the best-known are the Blue Annals of 'Gos Lotsawa and Bu ston's "History of the Dharma," are immensely valuable sources, but they are more parochial in their range of interest than those of the eighteenth-century Tibeto-Mongol scholars.8 For the earlier historians Indo-Tibetan Buddhism was the only religious system worth serious consideration, and Chinese Buddhism, Indian non-Buddhist religious philosophies, Bon, [End Page 173] and Islam were dealt with in a polemical or (especially in the case of Islam) a frankly hostile fashion. Something changed in the eighteenth century that produced works closer to modern comparative religion than to medieval heresiography.A major motive for this shift was surely the triumph of the Manchu Qing dynasty, which by the mid-eighteenth century had incorporated Tibet and Mongolia definitively into its sphere. Thus, the horizon of the Tibeto-Mongol intelligentsia widened to include the vast Manchu empire, whose leadership in its turn was becoming increasingly aware of other Asian societies and of the European colonial powers. I believe it is significant that Sumba Khembo, Tuken, and Gombojab were all of Mongol ethnicity, the first two from Amdo and the last from Mongolia; they were able to combine an encyclopedic mastery of Tibetan Buddhist texts and ritual with the greater objectivity available to people stemming from the geographical and cultural periphery of that tradition. All three of them were exposed to the cosmopolitan world of imperial Beijing, where they had ample opportunity to meet followers of non-Buddhist religions of a wide range of ethnicities.9By the mid-eighteenth century there were four Catholic churches in Beijing, serving thousands of Chinese Christian converts. Dozens of European priests were employed by the imperial court as well.10 The prevailing syncretic view of the three major Chinese religious philosophies (sanjiao)—Buddhism, Daoism, and the Literati Tradition—as being mutually complementary,11 prevailed in the capital. This is the view that is approvingly cited by Tuken: "there are three great traditions (lugs srol) which clarify the ultimate nature of things, the Literati Tradition, Daoism, and Buddhism."12In turning to these scholars' treatment of Christianity, we find the earliest notice of this religion in Gombojab's History of Buddhism in China,13 written around the mid-1730s.14 Gombojab renders the name of Jesus in its traditional Chinese form of Yesu; he is called the World... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Devil's Stratagem or Human Fraud:Ippolito Desideri on the Reincarnate Succession of the Dalai LamaMichael J. SweetThe institution of the Dalai Lama and the narrative of his reincarnate succession have become so familiar in the course of the past few decades as to seem almost unremarkable. But, let us imagine hearing the story of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama's succession for the first time: the prophecies of his dying predecessor, (...) the cryptic words of the state oracle, dreams, omens, a mummy turning its head and a fungus growing on a pillar (both indicating the direction of the birthplace of the new incarnation), visions in a sacred lake, and finally the discovery and recognition of a remarkable child who gives incontrovertible evidence of remembering his past life,2 followed by his enthronement and veneration as a virtual god-king—some people will take this story as a factual report, others will find it a captivating fairy tale,3 while still others would dismiss it as a sham. The process of reincarnate succession is unique to what Ippolito Desideri called "the false and most singular religious sect found in Tibet.... this hodgepodge of bizarre dogmas which make up a religious monstrosity unlike any other religion in the world that I know of,"4 and in the shock of first encounter it has appeared either miraculous, fraudulent, or diabolical to many outsiders who heard about it through the middle twentieth century, before Tibet was forcibly incorporated into China, when it could still be viewed as a remote and mysterious theocratic kingdom.5 The reception of the reincarnate succession narrative in the West, in China, and elsewhere certainly warrants a full-length treatment. Here I will focus on a small aspect of this subject, namely, how this narrative was received by one exceptional individual, the Italian Jesuit missionary Ippolito Desideri (1684–1733). In describing his understanding of reincarnate succession, applied in particular to the case of the Dalai Lama, I hope to illuminate Desideri's struggle in engaging with Tibetan Buddhism, caught as he was between acceptance and even enthusiasm for many aspects of Tibetan culture and religious life and his unswerving commitment to the faith and doctrine of the Catholic Reformation; the motive for all of his trials and labors in the Tibet mission was a burning desire to win the imperiled souls of the Tibetans for Christ. [End Page 131]Reincarnate succession has a long history in Tibet. Almost five hundred years before Desideri's sojourn, the Franciscan William of Rubruck (ca. 1220–after 1257) mentioned hearing of a boy who was less than three years old "yet was fully capable of rational thought; he said of himself that he was in his third incarnation, and he knew how to read and write."6 William, whose journey (1253–1255) to the court of the Mongol great khan Mönke occurred not very long after the institution of incarnate lamas originated in Tibet,7 was the first to introduce the figure of the infant tulku [incarnate lama] as child prodigy, which we will encounter subsequently.Aside from this one early reference, the subject truly surfaced for the first time in Athanasius Kircher's 1667 China Illustrata;8 the section dealing with Tibet was based on the account given to him by the German Jesuit Johannes Grüber, who had briefly visited Lhasa in 1661.9 Kircher's depiction of Tibet is a second- or third-hand mishmash of misinformation, fantasy, and the barest minimum of fact. The Dalai Lama is presented as a demonically inspired antipope: "He is worshiped like a divinity... They kiss his feet with incredible veneration, as if he were the Pope... by this the deceitfulness of the evil spirit is wondrously shown, for the veneration due only to... the Pope of Rome is transferred to the heathen worship of savage nations, like all the other mysteries of Christianity."10 Kircher here resorts to the principle of diabolical plagiarism, originating in early Christian apologetics, to explain the perceived resemblances of Tibetan practices and institutions to those of Roman Catholicism.11 However, he regarded the Dalai Lama's succession as a purely human deception in which a... (shrink)

This article explores the blasphemy concept in relation to the historical study of competing visions of doctrine and institutional modeling in revolutionary-era Mongolia and Buryatia. I focus on a close reading of a previously unstudied letter exchange between a prominent socialist leader and Buddhist reformer named Ts. Zhamtsarano and a conservative Mongol abbot that disputed reforms aiming to allow the laity to study alongside monks in monastic settings. In relation to those sources, I reject a straightforward application of “blasphemy” as (...) an analytical category. However, noting that micro-encounters such as that of the reformer and the abbot not only reference, but actively produce, macro-level social registers and institutions, I argue that in these materials we do see the generative practices of rejection and extension of received tradition that the blasphemy concept expresses. Such a process-based analytic, motivated by “blasphemy” but not a straightforward application of it to Buddhist case studies, is immensely useful in the comparative study of social and intellectual history in Buddhist societies, especially during periods of profound socio-political transition. (shrink)

The history of the concept of “religion” in Western tradition has intrigued scholars for years. This important collection of eighteen essays brings further light to the ongoing debate. Three of the invited participants, W.C. Smith, M. Despland and E. Feil, has each previously written impressive books treating this subject; the last two acknowledged the impact and continuing influence of Smith’s work, The Meaning and End of Religion. An introduction and a recapitulation of Smith’s contribution as a scholar set the stage (...) for a retrospective look at the published literature. Contributors then examine the transformation of words (the classical religio to the modern religion), particularities of religion in nineteenth-century France, Troeltsch’s concept of religion, the study of religion from an Asian point of view and the categorization of “World Religions.” The concluding essays elaborate contemporary anthropological, cross-disciplinary, semiological, deconstructive and psychoanalytical methodological approaches to the concept and study of “religion.” Exploring critically different aspects of the concept and study of religion, these provocative essays typically reflect the methodological pluralism currently existing in the field of Religious Studies. Of interest to scholars and students alike, this collection also contains a complete bibliography of W.C. Smith’s publications. (shrink)

With this profound final work, completed in the days leading up to his death, Michel Serres presents a vivid picture of his thinking about religion—a constant preoccupation since childhood—thereby completing Le Grand Récit, the comprehensive explanation of the world and of humanity to which he devoted the last twenty years of his life. Themes from Serres's earlier writings—energy and information, the role of the media in modern society, the anthropological function of sacrifice, the role of scientific knowledge, the problem of (...) evil—are reinterpreted here in the light of the Old Testament accounts of Isaac and Jonah and a variety of Gospel episodes, including the Three Wise Men of the Epiphany, the Transfiguration, Peter's denying Christ, the Crucifixion, Emmaus, and the Pentecost. Monotheistic religion, Serres argues, resembles mathematical abstraction in its dazzling power to bring together the real and the virtual, the natural and the transcendent; but only in its Christian embodiment is it capable of binding together human beings in such a way that partisan attachments are dissolved and a new era of history, free for once of the lethal repetition of collective violence, can be entered into. (shrink)

Despite its considerable intellectual interest and great social relevance, religion has been neglected by contemporary develop- mental psychologists. But in the last few years, there has been an emerging body of research exploring children’s grasp of certain universal religious ideas. Some recent findings suggest that two foundational aspects of religious belief – belief in divine agents, and belief in mind–body dualism – come naturally to young children. This research is briefly reviewed, and some future directions..

This article deals with the design argument for the existence of God as it is discussed in hume's "dialogues concerning natural religion". Using bayes's theorem in the probability calculus--Which hume almost certainly could not have known as such--It shows how the various arguments advanced by philo and cleanthes fit neatly into a comprehensive logical structure. The conclusion is drawn that, Not only does the empirical evidence fail to support the theistic hypothesis, But also renders the atheistic hypothesis quite highly probable. (...) A postscript speculates upon the historical question of hume's own attitude toward the design argument. (shrink)

Religion is not an evolutionary adaptation per se, but a recurring by-product of the complex evolutionary landscape that sets cognitive, emotional and material conditions for ordinary human interactions. Religion involves extraordinary use of ordinary cognitive processes to passionately display costly devotion to counterintuitive worlds governed by supernatural agents. The conceptual foundations of religion are intuitively given by task-specific panhuman cognitive domains, including folkmechanics, folkbiology, folkpsychology. Core religious beliefs minimally violate ordinary notions about how the world is, with all of its (...) inescapable problems, thus enabling people to imagine minimally impossible supernatural worlds that solve existential problems, including death and deception. Here the focus is on folkpsychology and agency. A key feature of the supernatural agent concepts common to all religions is the triggering of an "Innate Releasing Mechanism," or “agency detector,” whose proper domain encompasses animate objects relevant to hominid survival - such as predators, protectors and prey - but which actually extends to moving dots on computer screens, voices in wind, faces on clouds. Folkpsychology also crucially involves metarepresentation, which makes deception possible and threatens any social order; however, these same metacognitive capacities provide the hope and promise of open-ended solutions through representations of counterfactual supernatural worlds that cannot be logically or empirically verified or falsified. Because religious beliefs cannot be deductively or inductively validated, validation occurs only by ritually addressing the very emotions motivating religion. Cross-cultural experimental evidence encourages these claims. (shrink)

El presente estudio propone una lectura de la novela de José Saramago O Evangelo segundo Jesus Cristo a la luz de aquellos textos antiguos judíos y cristianos de temática bíblica que han sido excluidos de los correspondientes cánones sagrados de los judíos, protestantes y católicos. El análisis de la obra del escritor portugués revela un alto nivel de lo que se podría denominar intertextualidad inversa. Para reconstruir la vida de Jesús, Saramago se apropia de episodios, personajes y símbolos tanto de (...) la Biblia como de esos apócrifos antiguos y los transforma de tal manera que adquieren un significado opuesto al que poseen en sus respectivas fuentes textuales. De esta forma, Saramago lleva a cabo una exégesis personal particularmente osada que tergiversa o desmonta ciertos presupuestos que se consideran parte esencial de la tradición bíblica. Para lograr su propósito, el novelista pone en práctica una serie de técnicas literarias y hermenéuticas afines a las que se usaban en los textos apócrifos de la Antigüedad. Al igual que en un midrás hebreo, Saramago vuelve a contar una historia sagrada desde una perspectiva distinta, en este caso la de los débiles y desposeídos. Igualmente, su deseo de rellenar los huecos que quedaron sin explicación en los Evangelios canónicos hace eco de la técnica judía del derás. A través de un análisis detallado de los personajes principales y de algunos símbolos recurrentes que aparecen en la novela se descubre una glorificación de lo pequeño y de los marginados como focos de resistencia contra las fuerzas poderosas que desean dominarlos y silenciarlos. En el centro de esta lucha se encuentra un Jesús profundamente humano que busca inútilmente la respuesta a algunas de las interrogantes fundamentales que siguen atormentando a la humanidad: ¿Por qué entraron al mundo el mal y el dolor? ¿Por qué castiga Dios a los seres humanos? ¿Por qué tiene que sufrir el hombre la angustia de la culpa? (shrink)

The ideal of a universal religion -- Principles and practices of Vedanta -- Self-realization through knowledge -- Self-realization through control of mind -- Self-realization through selfless work -- Self-realization through love of God -- Great teachers of the world.

Gordon Graham presents a bold new account of Wittgenstein's philosophy, which argues for its relevance to the study of religion and aims to revitalize the philosophy of 'true religion'. He uses Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy to argue in favour of the idea that 'true religion' is to be understood as human participation in divine life.

Review of Ronald Dworkin, Religion without God , (Harvard University Press, 2013), 180 pages.

Presents a convincing argument as to why religion should be mixed with politics, ascertaining that certain religious beliefs should be made public and ...

Preview: This special issue of Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture follows on from the double special issue on Science and Religion published at the end of last year. This double issue focused primarily on questions in metaphysics and ontology. What several of the contributions have pointed out, however, is that the naturalistic worldview, which takes empirical science to be the only reliable source of knowledge, also implies a certain approach to living. Unsurprisingly this outlook extends beyond epistemological commitments (...) of naturalism and has consequences for the fundamental values which guide some of our choices and shape our outlook on the world. Being critical of this trend Roger Scruton has called it the charm of, or enchantment with, disenchantment. (shrink)

In this research the problem of liberty is considered in the context of religion as I am searching for an answer of the question if religion is not the main reason for limitation of freedom? My research is based on the philosophical essay of John S. Mill “On liberty”. An essential specification for this analysis is the fact that it is mainly interested in Christianity and to rather less extent, in the other religions. I am inclined to agree with the (...) critical opinion of Mill regarding religion and I am asking myself if religion is not the social-historical phenomenon which suppresses free thought, obliterates individuality in people and aspires to reigning greater masses of people as possible. And one more thing. Is it possible that to the final results of the influence on society’s life between religions and ideologies isput sign of equality? Isn’t it the free critical thought that is limited in both the cases and therefore society’s progress that is also limited? However inspiring with hope is the fact that such powerful ideological movements lack these days and the influence of religions is not as big as it was in previous periods of history. And – “thanks God”…. (shrink)

As austerity measures are put into place the world over and global restructuring is acknowledged by all as an attempt to bolster the economic system that lead to the crash, there is a great need to come to grips with the economic, political and philosophical legacy of Marx. Of particular interest are Marx's analyses of alienation and the cycles of boom and bust thought to be integral to the functioning of capitalism. Moreover, as the Cold War drifts into the history (...) books, it is possible to reconsider the lasting impact of Marx's analyses without the shadows cast by the Soviet version of communism. Equally, though, scholars are increasingly turning to Marx for insight into the rise of religion and the corresponding demise of political ideologies that seems to mark the contemporary age. Are we witnessing 'the return of Marx'? Few scholars have done as much to tease out the intricacies of Marx, ideology and religion and their overlapping concerns as the eminent writer and Marx biographer, Professor David McLellan. This book brings together a group of internationally renowned academics to reflect upon, develop and criticise McLellan's analyses of these three themes with a view to contributing more broadly to scholarly debates in these fields. This exciting and timely analysis will be of interest to scholars of political theory, the history of political thought, Marx and Marxism, sociology of knowledge, religion and theology more widely. (shrink)

"Contemporary Critiques of Religion sustains a probing dialogue between belief and unbelief. After isolating the central intellectual perplexities of Judaeo-Christian belief, it examines contemporary empiricist critiques of religion to reveal how essentially problematic is the mature Judaeo-Christian concept of God. Rebuttals to such an empiricist critique of religion are then considered in some detail. In Chapter 5 a form of conceptual relativism is isolated and examined. The implications of such a relativism, it is agruged, are those of scepticism and not (...) those of a total commitment to either belief or unbelief. Finally, a careful examination reveals the conceptual incoherencies of the logic of non-anthropomorphic God-talk."-Publisher. (shrink)