Asian Mythologies

Asian Mythologies
Author: Yves Bonnefoy
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 1993-05-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780226064567

These 130 articles Aisan mythologies and cover such topics as Buddhist and Hindu symbolic systems, myth in pre-Islamic Iran, Chinese cosmology and demons, and the Japanese conceptions of the afterlife and the "vital spirit". Also includes myths from Turkey, Korea, Tibet, and Mongolia. Illustrations.

Defining Shugendo

Defining Shugendo
Author: Andrea Castiglioni
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-11-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 135017940X

Defining Shugendo brings together leading international experts on Japanese mountain asceticism to discuss what has been an essential component of Japanese religions for more than a thousand years. Contributors explore how mountains have been abodes of deities, a resting place for the dead, sources of natural bounty and calamities, places of religious activities, and a vast repository of symbols. The book shows that many peoples have chosen them as sites for ascetic practices, claiming the potential to attain supernatural powers there. This book discusses the history of scholarship on Shugendo, the development process of mountain worship, and the religious and philosophical features of devotion at specific sacred mountains. Moreover, it reveals the rich material and visual culture associated with Shugendo, from statues and steles, to talismans and written oaths.

The Promise of Salvation

The Promise of Salvation
Author: Martin Riesebrodt
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2010-02-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226713946

Why has religion persisted across the course of human history? Secularists have predicted the end of faith for a long time, but religions continue to attract followers. Meanwhile, scholars of religion have expanded their field to such an extent that we lack a basic framework for making sense of the chaos of religious phenomena. To remedy this state of affairs, Martin Riesebrodt here undertakes a task that is at once simple and monumental: to define, understand, and explain religion as a universal concept. Instead of propounding abstract theories, Riesebrodt concentrates on the concrete realities of worship, examining religious holidays, conversion stories, prophetic visions, and life-cycle events. In analyzing these practices, his scope is appropriately broad, taking into consideration traditions in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Daoism, and Shinto. Ultimately, Riesebrodt argues, all religions promise to avert misfortune, help their followers manage crises, and bring both temporary blessings and eternal salvation. And, as The Promise of Salvation makes clear through abundant empirical evidence, religion will not disappear as long as these promises continue to help people cope with life.

Tantric Buddhism in East Asia

Tantric Buddhism in East Asia
Author: Richard K. Payne
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2006
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0861714873

Although Indian and Tibetan versions of tantric Buddhism are increasingly recognized, the East Asian variations on this practice remain largely overlooked. The only book to present the entire breadth of tantric Buddhism in East Asia, this collection remedies that situation with 12 key essays drawn from rare sources. Organized into four sections--China and Korea, Japan, Deities and Practices, and Influences on Japanese Religion--the book brings together a "critical mass" of scholarship, with the potential to create a sea change in the understanding of this subject

History of Kyudo and Iaido in Early Japan

History of Kyudo and Iaido in Early Japan
Author: Jesse C. Newman
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2015-12-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1504963598

The comic books that came out in the 1920s to get Americans to read more comprised of many action- and super heroes, such as Batman Superman, and Wonder Woman. Since 1968 Bruce Lee playing Kato and the Green Hornet, in 1973 the movie, Enter the Dragon will introduce Asian martial arts to the USA and the world. This book will show the superhuman feats of the Japanese archers psychologically and physically, and the records they achieved, in my opinion. These unsung people would be heroes today if more readers knew of these records that the Japanese have in their history. The impact of the mental and physical is so extreme that this information hopefully will garner THE WOW FACTOR!

Homa Variations

Homa Variations
Author: Richard K. Payne
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2016
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199351589

Throughout human history, and across many religious cultures, offerings are made into fire. The essays collected in Homa Variations provide detailed studies of this practice, known in the tantric world as the "homa," from its inception up to the present.

Asia in the Making of Europe

Asia in the Making of Europe
Author: Donald Frederick Lach
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 760
Release: 1965
Genre: Asia
ISBN: 9780226467566

First systematic, inclusive study of the impact of the high civilizations of Asia on the development of modern Western civilization.

Sacred Mountains of the World

Sacred Mountains of the World
Author: Edward Bernbaum
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 429
Release: 2022-03-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108834744

A fascinating exploration of the symbolism of mountains in the mythologies, religions, literature, and art of cultures around the world.

Wanderlust

Wanderlust
Author: Rebecca Solnit
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2001-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780140286014

A passionate, thought-provoking exploration of walking as a political and cultural activity, from the author of Orwell's Roses Drawing together many histories--of anatomical evolution and city design, of treadmills and labyrinths, of walking clubs and sexual mores--Rebecca Solnit creates a fascinating portrait of the range of possibilities presented by walking. Arguing that the history of walking includes walking for pleasure as well as for political, aesthetic, and social meaning, Solnit focuses on the walkers whose everyday and extreme acts have shaped our culture, from philosophers to poets to mountaineers. She profiles some of the most significant walkers in history and fiction--from Wordsworth to Gary Snyder, from Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet to Andre Breton's Nadja--finding a profound relationship between walking and thinking and walking and culture. Solnit argues for the necessity of preserving the time and space in which to walk in our ever more car-dependent and accelerated world.