Hinduism

Hinduism is the oldest world religion. With 1.2 billion followers, it is the third largest after Christianity and Islam. Most Hindus live in the Indian subcontinent, where their faith began. the Hindu symbol (above) is the word ‘Aum’ in Devanagari script, ostensibly the sound uttered at the dawn of our world. 

Strictly speaking, Hinduism is not a single ‘religion’. It has no founder, doctrine, creed or holy book. Rather, ‘Hinduism’ is an umbrella term for spiritual traditions originating in South Asia. The faith includes hundreds of different sects, each with its own rituals and understanding of the world. What unites Hindus are common beliefs, these include:

• Reincarnation (samsara) – you are reborn in another body when you die. The human soul (atman) is immortal. 
• Karma – actions have consequences in this life and the next. 
• Dharma – good karma is best attained by following one’s moral duty. Henotheism – collective atman, and the gods themselves, are manifestations of the ultimate reality (brahman). 

Buddhism and Jainism, which derrived from Hinduism, share belief in reincarnation and karma.

Mahatma Gandhi: 

“The chief value of Hinduism lies in holding the actual belief that all life (not only human beings, but all sentient beings) is one … coming from the One universal source, call it Allah, God or Parameshwara.’ 

The Vedas are the oldest Hindu text. Written between 1200 – 800 BC, they introduce the earliest Hindu deities, especially Indra, god of rain, and hymns and chants in their honour. Hinduism grew out of the Vedic religion. 

Although lacking a single scripture, several ancient texts, written in Sanskrit, continue to influence Hindu thought: 

• The Upanishads – basis of Hindu philosophy. 
• The Puranas – myths, legends and cosmology. 
• The Ramayana – an epic poem about Rama and Sita 
• The Mahabharata – an epic poem 3x the length of the Bible. 
• The Bhavagad Gita – a discourse between the warrior Arjuna and Krishna on ethics, morality and dharma. Part of the Mahabharata. 

The Trimurti are the three main gods of Hinduism. They are Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver and Shiva, the destroyer. As Brahma no longer intervenes in the world – his work being complete – only Vishnu and Shiva are actively worshipped; by Vaishnavis and Shaivites respectively. 

Vishnu incarnates into human form to restore the world’s balance in times of need, most famously as Rama, Krishna, and the Buddha. At the end of our age, Shiva will destroy the world, allowing its rebirth, and continuing a cycle which goes on forever.

The Caste System divides people into an ordained hierarchy based on birth, determining their work and who they can marry – one’s caste depends on karma attained in past lives. Before the modern era, those outside the system were ‘untouchable’, though the term dalit is now preferred. While the caste system arguably dates to Vedic times, it took its current form in the British Raj. 

Hinduism once dominated Southeast Asia, laying the foundations of Cambodian, Malay and Javanese civilisation. While most of Southeast Asia is now Muslim or Buddhist, it home to ruins of Hindu temples such as Angkor Wat. Hinduism still thrives on the island of Bali, Indonesia. In modern times, it spreads mainly through Indian migration. Hindus are a sizeable proportion of Bangladesh, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Fiji. Mauritius is the only Hindu-majority country outside of Asia.

The authors of the Puranas reckoned the world was 4.32 billion years old, an estimate closer to that of modern science than any other tradition.

Sources: Mainly Rachel Dwyer – What do Hindus Believe? (2008)

Paganism

Paganism describes the old religions of the world – before Christianity and Islam came to dominate. We generally use the term in a historical context, especially in areas that are Christian, Muslim or non-religious today. A follower of paganism is a pagan; a modern revivalist is a neopagan.

Pagans did not consider themselves members of a particular ‘religion’ – belief in gods and spirits was simply a part of life. To ancient people, denying the existence of Jupiter or Ra was like denying lightning. There was no concept of ‘religion’ either; religion, society and government were one and the same. 

Paganism was not one creed or set of beliefs but a variety of practices and ideas about the natural world. Pagans did, however, have some ideas in common:

• polytheism – belief in many gods
• myths and legends
• animal sacrifice
• sacred places like temples, groves and shrines
• belief in magic

Pagans believed supernatural forces influenced everyday life; these included spirits, ancestors and all-powerful gods. Such forces decided fortune, weather and the elements; everything mortals could not control. Deities could be common across whole cultures or specific to a single region, household, lake or tree.

One could appease a deity by praying to them or offering the life of an animal or (in some cultures) a person. Belief in one god was not exclusive, nor did pagans strictly adhere to gods from their culture. Ancient Rome, for example, had temples to not only its native gods but deities from Greece, Egypt and Persia. Gods represented everything from the sea and sky to abstract concepts like victory or love.

Pagans told stories about their gods but did not treat these stories as gospel truth. Their purpose was less to dictate the origins of the universe than to explain natural phenomena, justify rituals and entertain. It did not matter if narratives contradicted one another.

Most important to pagans were their rituals, for keeping on the good side of the gods was essential to a healthy society. For pagans, what one did was more important than what one believed. In Greece and Rome, in particular, ethics was not the domain of the gods but philosophers.

Many pagans believed in an afterlife. In the Egyptian and Norse traditions, dying and living the right way was immensely important. For others, the afterlife was either dreary, irrelevant, or non-existent. Worshipping gods and spirits were less about benefits in this world than in the next.

The word pagan likely comes from the Latin word paganus, which means ‘country dweller’. When Christianity spread across the Roman Empire, it spread first amongst the urban poor, and then the elite. By the 4th century BC, only the rural population – the pagani­- still worshipped the old gods. The name stuck. As pagans did not consider themselves as belonging to a particular religion; the term is best used when distinguishing old believers from the newer faiths which did.

Sources: Bart D. Ehrman – The Triumph of Christianity

See Also:

• Magic and Religion
• Myths and Legends
  • Norse Mythology
  • Māori Mythology
  • Inuit Mythology

The Ark of the Covenant

The Ark of the Covenant is the most sacred object in Judaism. According to the Hebrew Bible (or Christian Old Testament), it houses the original Ten Commandments and the sceptre of Aaron. The power of God is said to live in the Ark, and the Hebrews used it to conquer their Promised Land. Its current location is the stuff of legend.

The Book of Exodus says the Hebrew God instructed Moses to build the Ark during his forty days at Mount Sinai to exact measurements and specifications. Moses had a craftsman named Belazel and his assistant Oholiab build the Ark out of acacia and coat it with gold.
The book of Deuteronomy claimed Moses made the Ark himself. The Hebrews housed the Ark in the portable Tabernacle until the construction of Solomon’s Temple.

The Ark granted the Hebrews divine favour. With it in their control, rivers opened, and the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. When the Philistines, stole it, disease and famine struck the Hebrews until it was recovered. Only in the presence of the Ark could sinners atone.

Living embodiments of gods were common in the Bronze Age. The Babylonians, Assyrians, Philistines and others housed statues to their gods, which they protected fiercely. If the statue were stolen or destroyed, its people would lose their god’s favour. The statue of Marduk was stolen and recovered five times over a thousand years.

The Ark of the Covenant disappeared in the 530s BC when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem. Most scholars believe it was lost forever.

The Book of Maccabees – canon to Jews, Catholics and Orthodox Christians – claims Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave near Mount Nebo (modern West Bank). There it would stay “until God gathers his people together again and shows his mercy.” As the Biblical stories spread over the following centuries, so did legends about the Ark’s location.

Some believe the Ark resides in a secret tunnel beneath Jerusalem and that the Dead Sea Scrolls are a map to its location.

The Lemba people of Zimbabwe are descendants of Yemeni Jews. They claim their ancestors brought the Ark south on their migration to Africa until it crumbled. The Lemba priests built a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, allegedly on God’s command. In the 1940s, German scientists carbon-dated the Lemba Ark and found it dated to 1350, around the collapse of the Great Zimbabwe civilization. Today it is housed in the Museum of Harare, Zimbabwe.

The Ethiopian Tewehado Orthodox Church has a different story. According to the Ethiopian National Epic, King Solomon’s fathered a son by the Queen of Sheba. Their son was Menelik I, who became the first emperor of Ethiopia. He brought the Ark from Jerusalem to Ethiopia. The Ark allegedly resides in the treasury of the Church of Our Lady of Zion in the holy city of Axum to this day, where only the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is allowed to view it.

In a 1992 interview, Professor of Ethiopian Studies Edward Ullendorf claimed he saw the Ark firsthand in 1941 while working for the British army. The priests tried to stop him, but he forced his way into the chamber:

“They have a wooden box, but it’s empty,” Ullendorf claimed. “Middle- to late-medieval construction, when these were fabricated ad hoc.”

Sources: King James Bible, Live Science
See Also:

• Moses
• Second Temple Judaism
• The Historical Babylon
• The Allegorical Babylon

Māori Mythology

Māori Mythology encompasses the traditional creation narratives, legends and folktales of New Zealand. Deriving from the Polynesian tradition, Māori mythology is among the world’s youngest. Its stories survive today through accounts recorded by 19th-century British scholars and oral tradition.

Because Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, were never a single nation, and because their stories transmitted by word of mouth, there is not one mythological narrative. Key details differ from place to place. The most familiar stories come from North Island traditions, many of which British governor Sir George Grey recorded in his ‘Nga Mahi a nga Tipuna’ (1853). 

Ātua are supernatural beings resembling gods or deities. Over 70 in number, they personify all aspects of the living world. Many genealogies trace descent to a particular atua. Some of the most well-known include:

• Tāne-Mahuta – atua of the forests and birds. In wooded New Zealand, he, not Tangaroa is humanity’s tutelary deity.
• Tangaroa – atua of the ocean and its creatures. Analogous to Tangaloa/Kanaloa – the sea god of Polynesian mythology.
• Tāwhiri-mātea – atua of the weather. 
• Tū-mata-uenga – atua of war.
• Tama-nui-te-rā – atua of the sun. 
• Rongo-ma-tāne – atua of kumara (sweet potato), cultivated foods and peace.
• Ruaumoko – atua of earthquakes.
• Whiro – atua of misfortune.
• Mahuika – atua of fire.
• Hine-nui-te-pō – atua of death.

Long ago, the Sky Father Rangi-nui and the Earth Mother Papa-tū-ā-nūkū joined in a tight and loving embrace. Their 70 children, the original ātua, lived in the dark and confined space between them. Some wanted to separate the two; others did not. Eventually, Tāne-mahuta wrenched his parents apart with his legs and forever separated the sky from the earth, letting light into the world. To this day, Rangi-nui and Papa-tū-ā-nūkū grieve their separation. 

Our world is one of many, each layered above and below. Some traditions speak of an atua called Io-matua-kore, the uncreated one, who dwells in the highest plane. Whiro, who tried to usurp Tāne, dwells in the lowest.

Each of the ātua bestowed a piece of their essence on the first person, meaning although humans die, we too are divine. 

Māui, a demigod appearing across Polynesian mythology, is one of the most famous figures of the Māori tradition. His deeds include:

• fishing out the North Island of New Zealand
• tethering the sun so it passed slowly across the sky
• stealing fire from the goddess Mahuika and granting it to the world

Hine-nui-te-pō, the goddess of death, shepherds the souls of the dead to the next world. Māui met his doom when trying to defy her.

Māori myth blends into history with the tales of discovery and migration from Polynesia. There are stories of fearsome ogres, moving mountains, dragon-like taniwha, elf-like turehu, and bloodthirsty sea demons called ponaturi.

As the ātua represent natural forces, they are still significant for many in New Zealand today.

Sources: Witi Ihimaera – Navigating the Stars (2020), Te Ara Encyclopedia

See Also:

• Polynesian Migrations
• Myths and Legends

Myths and Legends

Myths and legends are the sacred narratives of a culture. Like music, they are a human universal. Most myths have ancient origins and are transposed across generations by spoken word or sacred writings. Seldom are they ascribed to a single author. These stories blend religion with history, literature and science. They are the oldest recorded stories in the world.

Myths explain the way the world is through story. Carrying a deeper ‘spiritual truth’, they often deal with the origins of the universe, the deeds of supernatural beings and heroic individuals. Myths encapsulate a culture’s collective values and heritage; they both inform and reflect their worldview. Myths create cohesion and common values across a society and people who have never met.

Yuval Noah Harari, author of ‘Sapiens’:

Fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states. Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.

Finnish Folklorist Lauri Honko:

Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world, the creation, fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the gods as a result of which the world, nature, and culture were created together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society’s religious values and norms, it provides a pattern of behaviour to be imitated, testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and establishes the sanctity of cult.

‘Mythology’ refers to a culture’s collective body of myths and legends. The word myth comes from the Greek ‘mythos’, meaning story.

Examples of Myth: 

• The Osiris Myth
• The Great Flood
• The Ramayana

In modern English, ‘myth’ is sometimes used to describe something commonly believed but untrue. This is not the scholarly definition, however. Experts seldom speculate whether a particular myth is empirically ‘true’ or not. A sacred narrative is the primary definition of a myth.

Legends, as defined by Oxford Dictionary, are ‘traditional [stories] sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated.’ Typically, they seem more credible than myths and often focus on heroic or saintly human characters instead of divinities. 

Examples of Legends:

• The Trojan War
• King Arthur and the Holy Grail
• El Dorado

Folk Tales are traditional tales from a particular culture. Unlike myths and legends, folk tales are not religious and focus on ordinary people or magical creatures rather than deities and heroes. While high literature, and epic poetry is often recorded by a culture’s elite, folk tales spring from the oral tradition of the common people.

Examples of Folk Tales:

• Androcles and the Lion
• Brothers Grimms’ Fairy tales
• The One Thousand and One Nights

Because myths, legends and folk tales are primarily oral and are retold by different peoples, the same story can have multiple versions, with names and key details varying. Through that measure, they would constantly improve. Most myths and legends do not have an official version.

Most of these traditional stories are thousands of years old. The staying power of myths is a testament to their value. 

Sources: Lauri Honko – the Problem of Defining Myth, Oxford Dictionary, Philip Wilkinson – Myths and Legends, Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens

See Also:

• Magic and Religion
• Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
  
• Mythology:
  • Māori Mythology
  • Inuit Mythology
  • Venus, the Queen of Heaven and the Dying God
  • The Epic of Gilgamesh
• Folklore
  • Asturian Folklore
  • Folklore of the Orkney Islands
  • How Syuna the Rockfish got his Flat Head

Magic and Religion

According to The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer, humans understand the natural world through science, religion and magic. Before the Scientific Revolution, the latter two were the lenses through which most saw existance. 

Magic is the belief that one can influence the natural world through ritual and incantation. Like science, it assumes an immutable natural law; unlike science, it reaches such conclusions through received wisdom rather than investigation. By working within these laws, a magic-user can harness invisible forces to manipulate matter from a distance. Such belief systems were once universal and still existed in Frazer’s time. Superstitions and taboos persist to this day.

There are two types of magic: homoeopathic and contagious.

Homoeopathic magic assumes that an effect will always resemble its cause – the Law of Similarity. Ruthenian burglars used to throw human bones over a house to induce its inhabitants into a deathlike sleep. While fighting, Malagasy soldiers avoided eating animals killed by spears for fear they would share their fate. Effigies and voodoo dolls use homoeopathic magic.

Contagious magic assumes invisible forces bind things that were once a part of one another. By stabbing a person’s footprints, for example, one could harm their feet. People put baby teeth by mouse holes so new ones would be strong as a mouse’s. One could hurt a person by burning or beating their garments. In many cultures, a placenta’s resting place determined its owner’s fate.

 ‘The fatal flaw of magic’, writes Frazer ‘lies not in its general assumption of a sequence of events determined by law, but in its total misconception of the nature of the particular laws which govern that sequence.’ Belief in magic held because there was no way to refute it. If a rain dance, or a killing curse, appears to fail, for example, a magician needs only wait for the inevitable as proof. Such was the reverence and fear of magic, few were willing to refute it.

Many societies believed magic works through an invisible spiritual world. Spirits of nature and the dead can be manipulated or compelled to do one’s bidding through spells and ritual. Ancient Egyptian sorcerers claimed to manipulate the gods themselves to do their will. 

As human societies grew larger and more complicated, so too did their understanding of the world. Rather than see themselves as the centre of the universe, able to manipulate it to their will, they realised human futility and recognised the spirits as not merely magical, but all-powerful and divine. Thus religion superseded magic.

Religion is the belief in a higher spiritual power which humans can call on through prayer, sacrifice or conciliation. While magic imposes human will on the divine, religion supplicates oneself to it. People can gain supernatural aid not through coercion or spells, but by seeking divine favour. Christianity, in particular, claims the divine is all-powerful and above human whims, making magic antithetical. Pagan deities were cast out as demons or assimilated as saints. The Aztec Empire believed the sun would not rise unless they sacrificed human hearts to Huitzilopochtli.

Religion and magic often intertwined. When praying for rain failed, Cypriot and Siamese peasants cast holy icons into the sunshine to punish them for not heeding their calls. Exposure to harsh sunlight forced the saint or spirit to call the rain. French peasants believed certain priests could perform the mass of Saint Sécaire, a forbidden ritual which compelled the Holy Spirit to kill a designated person.

Science and magic share a belief in natural law. Thus, in Europe, it was not theology but alchemy and Rennaisance magic which made way for the Scientific Revolution. 

‘Its fundamental conception is identical with that of modern science; underlying the whole system is a faith, implicit but real and firm, in the order and uniformity of nature.’

Sources: Sir James Frazer – The Golden Bough (1890)

See Also:

• Were We Better off as Hunter-Gatherers?
• Folklore of the Orkney Islands
• Rule of Three
• Green Eyed Devils
• Clairvius Narcisse and the Zombies of Haiti

Mani of Babylonia

Mani (216 – 277) was a painter and theologian who preached in 3rd century Persia. His teachings became Manichaeism, a religion that peaked in the 9th century and rivalled early Christianity. Mani envisioned a global faith that combined the teachings of Christianity, Gnosticism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism and could breach cultural and linguistic divisions. Persecuted in Persia and Rome, Mani’s teachings spread as far as China and North Africa.

Mani was born to a Jewish-Christian sect near modern-day Baghdad. He was of Parthian descent and lived under the Sassanian Dynasty, who were staunch Zoroastrians. At age 20, Mani heard the voice of his ‘divine twin’ urging him to leave home and preach the word of God. Mani travelled the Silk Road to India, where he learned from Hindu and Buddhist sages. In his lifetime he gained more followers than Jesus. He detailed his teachings in six known books that he wrote and illustrated:

• Shapuragan
• Book of Giants
• Fundamental Epistle
• Living Gospel
• Mani Codex
• Arzhang

Mani wrote the Shapurangan for Emperor Shapur of Persia. It failed to convert him, though Shapur tolerated and protected Mani’s followers. As none of the originals survive in full, what we know comes from fragments, quotations and discussions by other authors.

Manichaeans believe in a dualistic universe. Good and Evil are separate and equally powerful forces. Both are uncreated and eternal. Originally the worlds of Light and Darkness were separate and the Earth was born from their collision. Humans are essentially (Good) spiritual beings trapped in (Evil) material bodies. The battle between Good and Evil takes place in the human soul. The Divine Father sent prophets to guide humanity back to him. These included Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus and Mani. Only through prayer, fasting and the and rejection of evil can one’s soul escape the cycle of reincarnation and reunite with the World of Light. The truly evil join the World of Darkness when they die.

The faith combines Zoroastrian dualism with Biblical revelation and Buddhist enlightenment. In his books, Mani detailed his cosmology with coloured illustrations. He sought to reform Zoroastrianism and turn it from its ethnocentric origins as a religion for Persians and Medes to a universal missionary faith for all mankind as the early Christians did with Judaism. As a painter, he believed the arts in all their forms were sacred and divine.

After years abroad, Mani returned to Persia in AD 272. The Zoroastrian clergy considered his teachings a dangerous heresy. In 273 the new king, Bahram I, imprisoned Mani and ordained his execution. Mani was flayed alive, his body stuffed with straw and crucified over the gates of Gundeshapur. Bahram banned Manichaeism and expelled its followers from Persia.

In the West, Manichaeism spread across Roman Italy and North Africa. Saint Augustine was a Manichaean before converting to Christianity. Through him, dualistic tendencies seeped into Catholic thought, particularly regarding Heaven and Hell. Manichaean teachings strongly influenced medieval heretics like the Cathars, whom French crusaders exterminated in the 14th century.

The Uighurs adopted Manichaeism and it spread through western China. Their empire collapsed in the 840s, however, and they later converted to Islam. Manichaeism thrived in China until purges drove it underground. Today only a few sects still practice the faith, and only one temple remains – a remote shrine in Ca’oan, China that was long disguised as a Buddhist temple.

Sources: Encyclopedia Iranica, Iran Chamber, Kaveh Farrokh

See Also:

• Iranian Civilization
• The Historical Babylon
• The Sassanian Empire

Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

‘Seventy thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.’

The final paragraph of the final chapter offers a fitting summary to Israeli professor Yuval Noah Harari’s magnum opus. ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ (2014) traces the human story, from our humble beginnings to our exceptional rise, by identifying a series of key biological, social and technological developments that shaped the world we know today. Harari explains why and how homo sapiens are, illustrating the big picture with pertinent and oft amusing historical anecdotes. In the spirit of Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’, it provides a scientific perspective on world history.

Sapiens has four parts:

• One: The Cognitive Revolution –sentience and self-awareness, language, hunter-gatherers and our role in the Pleistocene Extinction.
• Two: The Agricultural Revolution – farming, hierarchies and the stories which underpin them, writing, prejudice and injustice.
• Three: The Unification of Humankind – global civilization, money and commerce, empire, religion and ideology.
• Four: The Scientific Revolution – the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, capitalism, happiness the state of the modern world and our possible future

Harari’s premise is the impact of ‘shared fictions’: societies’ beliefs and values, the way we view the world, the ideologies we share and the stories and myths which uphold them. A corporation, a nation, a higher power or even money itself, is not real in the tangible sense, yet through shared belief in the system, it holds sway over our daily lives, unifies peoples and upholds social structures. In Harari’s view consumerism and liberal humanism – the dominant ideologies of today –  are just as much ‘religions’ as Buddhism or Islam, for they shape how we view and interact with the world and our fellow man.

Released in 2011 in Hebrew and 2014 in English, Sapiens was immensely successful. It sold over a million copies and catapulted Harari from an insignificant history professor to one of the world’s leading intellectuals. Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Jared Diamond and Mark Zuckerberg are fans. While Sapiens deals with our human past, his newer books Homo Deus (2016) and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018) deal with the future and present, respectively. I have not yet read them.

Despite his heavy-hitting concepts, Harari writes in an eloquent and accessible manner. His prose is thoughtful, punchy and descriptive, his content insightful and often provocative. This book will change how you view the world.

I don’t think I’ve ever had so many ‘aha’ moments in so short a time. It might be the best nonfiction I’ve ever read.

Yuval Noah Harari is a professor of world history at Hebrew University. He lives with his husband on a cooperative farm near Jerusalem and is an ardent vegan. He meditates for two hours every day.

See Also:

• Why Did Europe Take Over the World?
• The 1769 Transit of Venus
• Were We Better off as Hunter-Gatherers?