This Handbook is the product of scholarly collaboration on an international scale. It presents the conclusions of some of the latest academic research in a readable manner for the general public as well as for the student of religions. The book has a clear focus, namely living religions in the twentieth century. It also has a carefully thought-out structure, so that the reader is entitled to an account of the presuppositions which lie behind it.
The most fundamental of these is the importance of religion in history. Whatever any individual’s personal religious beliefs may be, or even if there is some antagonism towards religion, it is difficult for anyone to deny that religions have had considerable impact on societies in all continents. Religions have often been deeply involved in political matters, in cultural developments; they have been used to legitimate, suppress or inspire regimes, philosophies and artistic movements. Religious institutions have, for good or ill, dominated or undermined secular establishments of many kinds. Individuals have been inspired by religion to live up to the highest possible personal standards, or provoked to display the basest instincts. It is not possible to understand the history of most, if not all, countries without knowledge of the religions which have flourished there and influenced, moulded or corrupted both leaders and masses.
It is often said that this is a secular age; that religion is declining. A basic conviction behind this book is that such assertions are at most half-truths, if not wholly wrong. Perhaps formal membership of some established religious institutions is declining, but this represents only one part of the religious spectrum. In other parts religion can evidently be seen to flourish in the twentieth century: in new religious movements in primal societies in Africa or in the cities of Japan; on US university campuses in the 1960s; in the powerful spirit of Islamic revivalism in the 1970s; and in the growth of ‘alternative’ religions or charismatic movements in various continents in the 1970s and 1980s. Religion is only seen to be declining if it is viewed from a limited and ‘traditionalist’ perspective. This Handbook is concerned with both established religions and the new movements.
With modern communications, religious institutions and people are in greater contact than ever before. Such contact produces an enormous impetus for change. This is true not only of international religions (for example Buddhism), as they have moved across political boundaries and been challenged by radical political change, but also of the traditions of ‘small-scale’ or primal societies, whether in Africa or the Pacific, as they have been confronted by the entry of such missionary religions as Islam and Christianity. The twentieth century can be characterized as a particularly dynamic period in the history of religions. Religious people of most generations in diverse cultures have considered ‘the youth of today’ as less religious than themselves. The truth is sometimes that the young are not so much less religious as religious in a different way. Living means changing; this Handbook is concerned with living religions as they have experienced change in the twentieth century.
However great, and valid, people’s interest in modern movements may be, it would be rash, even wrong, to look at recent apart from earlier history. This is not only because religions, like people, are in some measure the products of their own history, but also because living religions commonly assert their identity with the past. Few movements, however new, stress their difference from their origins. Revival or reform movements often emphasize that they are returning to the purity of their tradition’s original form. It is, therefore, necessary to understand both the history and the perceived history of the religions.
This Handbook is concerned with living religions in another sense also: how does each religion function as a vital force in the daily life of its adherents? Many books focus heavily on doctrines, making religion primarily a belief system or a cerebral activity. Right belief is an important factor in some traditions, but not in others. For a great many people in various countries religion is something which is part of the fabric of society and life. It is something ‘done’ and lived rather than something reasoned: however the scholars may theorize, whatever may be the ‘official’ teaching of a given ‘establishment’, the religion of the majority is often expressed mainly through custom and practice. So, whereas some books assume a ‘pure’ form of the ‘original’ religion which has been ‘adulterated’ by the ‘superstitions’ of the common people, writers in this Handbook give serious attention to both beliefs and practices, to the rites and customs as well as to the teachings of the religions. In recent years some scholars have used the distinction between the ‘great’ and the ‘little’ traditions to distinguish between the (inter)national or ‘mainstream’ formal expression of a religion and its local (e.g. village) expressions. Such a division may be inappropriate for some religions because it implies too great a gap between classical teachings and popular practices, or because there may be more than one ‘great’ tradition (as for example with the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant traditions of Christianity). Nevertheless, this distinction has served a useful function in that it has drawn to people’s attention the variety of expressions of religion which conventional ‘theological’ approaches have neglected.
A real danger for a book on religions is that it can too easily assume, wrongly, that there are always definable, separate phenomena corresponding to the labels popularly used, such as Christianity or Hinduism. In practice the divisions between religions are sometimes artificial. It is not always the case that to believe one religion is ‘right’ necessarily involves believing that another is ‘wrong’. Dual or multiple affiliation to religious organizations does occur, for example in contemporary Japan. The impact of missionary religions on primal societies has often produced new movements which do not naturally belong under any of the conventional labels. Religion must sometimes, therefore, be studied as a regional phenomenon rather than under the conventional headings of ‘-isms’.
Assumptions abound in the study of religion; they are at their most dangerous when they are unrecognized. This book seeks to challenge many commonly held assumptions: that India is changeless; that Christianity is a single, easily recognized phenomenon; that religions are monolithic wholes; that Jainism and Zoroastrianism are dead religions; that Islam is a ‘Near Eastern’ religion; or that Buddhism is an abstract philosophy. But it is not only popular assumptions which need to be questioned or clarified; it is just as important to spell out scholarly assumptions. There are few cold facts in the study of religions: all explanation involves interpretation. Rarely do general books on religions set out what scholarly methods and assumptions lie behind their accounts. Perhaps it is assumed that the general reader does not need such information. One conviction behind this book is that it is precisely the general reader, or the non-specialist, who does need such an account because she or he is the most vulnerable to an unbalanced or biased account. Authors in this Handbook have, therefore, given a brief account of the different scholarly methods and assumptions which have influenced the study of their subject. It is equally necessary for the reader to have some idea of the nature of the sources on which such studies have been based, because the questions which can be asked, if not always answered, vary according to the type of sources available. Contributors have added a brief survey of the range of materials available in order to aid a proper understanding of the tradition.
Because the various religions differ so much from one another it is not possible to devise a single appropriate structure for all the entries. A literary straitjacket is neither desirable nor possible. But in order to give some unity and coherence to this multi-author work, authors were asked to lay out their material under the following headings, in so far as they are appropriate:
1 Introduction, covering: (a) a brief survey of the main primary sources; (b) an introduction to the history of the religion; (c) a survey of the main phases and assumptions of scholarly study of the religion.
2 A succinct account of the main teachings of the religion.
3 An outline of the main practices of the religion, including formal worship and ‘rites of passage’ (i.e. rituals thought to convey the individual from one stage of life to another, as at birth, initiation to maturity, marriage and death).
4 Popular, ‘little’ or ‘local’ traditions.
5 Modern or twentieth-century developments, not only in beliefs and practices but also with reference to major political and social changes.
In addition authors were asked to collect, where possible, appropriate data (e.g. statistics) which would make this a useful Handbook for the scholar as well as the layperson. Obviously this general structure and range of material had to be adapted to the nature of the respective traditions.
In addition to the study of modern developments in each of the religions or regions covered, it seemed important to include material which set these developments in a wider perspective. Thus chapters have been included on new religious movements and on the ‘alternative’ religions in the West. The latter subject is one which few general books cover, yet it is one which is particularly important given the vitality of such groups and the ignorance with which they are so often reported. ‘Alternative’ religions have proliferated to such an extent that there is a real problem in providing full coverage in any one book. The solution adopted here is to give one general chapter on the main ‘families’ of such religions and a substantial entry on one case, namely Baha’ism, which may be considered something of a paradigm for possible future developments. Baha’ism can be seen in origin as an Islamic reform movement, but it has grown into an autonomous, self-aware religion with missions in many countries, for example the United States, as well as in the Third World.
The sequence of chapters in a general book of this kind sometimes reflects a fundamental assumption regarding the priority of religions or a conviction relating to their supposed type. There is no such significance in the order of chapters in this Handbook. It is intended to be a book to be enjoyed, but in practice it is unlikely that it will be read from one cover straight through to the other. Which tradition is at the front and which at the back is, therefore, not a significant issue. The important point is rather the groupings of traditions. Because of their historical interconnectedness it was thought helpful to group together the semitic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Similarly, Hinduism, Sikhism and Jainism needed to be together. Zoroastrianism was placed between these two groups because it is a religion which has historically and geographically stood between them. The chapter on Buddhism is placed between those on India and those on China and Japan because it spans these various Asian cultures. The traditions of Native North Americans, the Pacific and Africa (so commonly neglected in books on living religions) are grouped together, as are the chapters on different aspects of the nature and development of new or ‘alternative’ religious movements.
Every reader will doubtless have his or her own ideas on what should go into a book and in what proportions. Obviously there are omissions. What single book could encompass a field that is so diverse, so changing and so complex? One topic which the editor regretfully omitted was a general discussion of methods, assumptions and definitions. But, given that such methodological issues are considered in relation to the individual topics, it was decided that a general chapter on such themes would have swung the overall balance of the book too far towards the theoretical. For the interested reader a list of challenging books on this topic is included in the general bibliography (see p. 939).
As authors have taken as a priority the readability of their text and a broad view of the history and phenomena of their respective subjects, they have had to omit details which readers may find important and interesting. This is especially the case with regard to intercontinental movements such as Buddhism, Christianity and new religious movements. In such instances the reader is referred to A New Dictionary of Religions (Blackwell/Penguin, 1995). The two books can be used, for both pleasure and profit, independently. But they do complement each other. In various ways they are designed alike, not least in the presentation of bibliographical material. Each entry has a numbered bibliography. In the body of the text square brackets are used exclusively and consistently for bibliographical references. An Arabic numeral before the colon refers to the number of a book in the bibliography. A roman numeral after the colon refers to a chapter in that book, whereas an arabic numeral after the colon refers to pages in that book. Thus [4: v] refers to chapter 5 of item 4, whereas [4: 5] refers to page 5 of the same book. In this way references can be given to further reading on specific as well as general points without interrupting the flow of the text. The guiding principle in the arrangement of the bibliographies is to provide the non-specialist reader with the information necessary to find the books in a library. Alternative editions (mainly, but not only, American and British) have also been noted. In addition to the bibliographies, some chapters carry a few end-notes, referred to by superior figures in the body of the chapter, or appendices of a specialist nature.
In contrast to the Dictionary it was decided, reluctantly, to omit the subjects of Marxism and Humanism. The Dictionary is intended to be more comprehensive than the Handbook. For the latter it was thought important to allow space for more extended consideration of the religions covered. The physical constraints of the size of the book made it necessary to concentrate on what are generally considered the major religious traditions, from which category Marxists and Humanists typically wish to distance themselves.
It should be noted that maps in the Handbook are intended to locate important places mentioned in the text. They do not distinguish chronological periods, so that ancient and modern sites appear on the same map.
Two common designations have been avoided in this book. The first is AD (= anno Domini, ‘the year of Our Lord’), because this is taken by many to represent a Christian orientation. Instead, the more widely accepted CE (Christian Era) and BCE (Before [the] Christian Era) are used throughout. The second term which has been avoided is ‘Old Testament’, because this implies belief in a ‘New Testament’, reflecting a Christian assessment of texts which is offensive to Jews. Instead, the term ‘Hebrew Bible’ has been used, which by referring to the language of the texts is intended to be religiously neutral. In a book written for, and by, people of different religious positions, or of none at all, a neutral stance is considered essential.
Western publishing conventions generally treat Judeo-Christian scriptures differently from those of other religions. Thus books from the Christian Bible, e.g. the Gospel according to Matthew, abbreviated to Matthew, are not printed in italics, whereas those of other religions are. In a technical, unbiased book such practice is questionable. In this New Handbook the following practice has been adopted: the name of the main scriptural work (Avesta, Bible, Qur’an) appears in roman, because of the frequency with which such titles appear. Sections or books within that scriptural collection and all other texts are italicized.