The Development and Codifications of Religious and Cultural Traditions

• The Persistence Of Older Forms Of Worship

  • Shamanism: attempted to heal the sick, prayed to the spirits for success in hunting, and enforced taboos, or forbidden behaviors
  • Ancestor veneration
  • filial piety
  • syncretism: blending of old and new religious beliefs, mixing practices from more than one religion

• Performed Faiths and New Religions

  • Judaism

  • the monotheistic faith of Hebrews took more solid shape

  • Jewish diaspora: spreading of Jewish people around the world

  • Tanakh: rabbis codified Jewish scriptures, which included the Torah

  • included the Talmud: personal commentaries

  • From Vedism to Hinduism

  • Brahmins taught that through unquestioned obedience worshippers could be reincarnated into better lives

  • Upanishads raised the possibility that people could liberate themselves from the cycle of life, death and reincarnation without relying on brahmins

  • Vedism was absorbed into a larger set of beliefs known as Hinduism

    • Three main deities
    • Brahma is the male personification of the World Soul
    • Vishnu the Preserver is a savior figure and a great friend to humanity
    • Shiva the Destroyer, reflects the duality of life and death
    • Shakti is the great mother goddess

  • Hinduism inherited the concepts of karma, reincarnation and the caste system

  • The caste system was justified by the Law of Manu

    • Argued that acceptance of one’s status was a moral duty

  • Sati ritual: widows of certain castes were required to burn themselves to death on the funeral pyres of their deceased husbands

    • Discouraged by India’s colonial masters
    • Outlawed by India in the 1900’s

  • Buddhism

  • Based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama

  • His search of human suffering caused his spiritual enlightenment

  • Ashoka, the Mauryan emperor became a great supporter of Buddhism and spread it throughout India and it’s borders

  • Supports spiritual perfection through life, death and reincarnation

  • Disagrees with the caste system, rather explains that anyone can reach nirvana or liberation from the wheel of life

  • Two schools, Theravada and Mahayana

    • Theravada: emphasizes the simplicity and meditation and remains closer to Buddha’s actual teachings
    • Mahayana: the newer school, involves motor ritual and symbology than what Buddha spoke of
    • due to syncretism: upon reaching new lands, Buddhism often blended with local beliefs

  • Confucianism

  • grew out of a philosophy founded by Confucius who made no claim to divinity

  • Analects: Confucius’ teachings, compiled by his followers after his death

  • Social harmony: could be created by rulership and good behavior from below

  • Order and hierarchy are paramount, the well-being of the group comes before the individual

  • Mandate of heaven

  • Stressed filial piety

  • Ancestor veneration

  • A highly patriarchal system

  • Contrasted with China’s doctrine of Legalism, which viewed people as innately immoral, and advocated for harsh punishments to control people

  • Daoism

  • the universe is governed by the dao, “the way or path”

  • Founder: Laozi

  • Central text: Tao-te Ching

  • Ancestor veneration

  • Celestial bureaucracy

  • Fortune telling, and the I-Ching, “Book Of Changes” which teaches how to read the future

  • Symbol: yin-yang, a circle that illustrates that nothing is absolute

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  • Christianity

  • Founded by Jesus of Nazareth, later known as Christ

  • After Rome’s collapse the Christian church drifted apart in terms of leadership and doctrine

    • Roman Catholicism trained dominant and united much of Europe
    • In the East, Christianity evolved into Eastern Orthodoxy

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  • Thought and Culture

  • Empirical thinking: means of systematic observation

  • The Greeks were the first to move towards scientific thinking

  • Several civilizations began rational thoughts known as philosophy

  • Famous literature: Mahabharata, Bhagvad-Gita, Analects, I-Ching, The Art Of War and the Aeneid

  • Historically and transregionally influential languages: Sanskrit, Mandarin Chinese, Greek and Latin

  • Paper appeared in China, along with woodblock

    • Eventually gave rise to moveable type printing

  • Architecture: Great Library of Alexandria, Hanging Gardens Of Babylon and the use of columns and domes

  • Parthenon, Colosseum, pyramids, cave temples, Pillars Of Ashoka and pagoda style building of temples

  • Chinese practice of planning cities such as Chang’an, according to grid layouts

  • Greco-Buddhist architecture and sculpture: an example of cultural borrowing

    • resulted from the campaigns of Alexander the Great

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