Chinese Mythological Gods

Chinese Mythological Gods
Author: Keith G. Stevens
Publisher:
Total Pages: 112
Release: 2001
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

This is an introduction to the most frequently encountered Chinese deities in the enormous Chinese pantheon, focusing on those gods which express the most common concerns of the Chinese people. Some of these include the gods of creation myths, the mythical founders of China's early societies, and the deities of the celestial world, nature, and destiny. There have been few written records of these popular myths and gods in English or Chinese, as they have traditionally been transmitted orally. Highlighting regional variations, this is the ideal companion to deciphering the divine maze of statues in most Chinese temples.

The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia

The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia
Author: Mark H. Munn
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 478
Release: 2006-07-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520243498

Among maternal deities of the Greek pantheon, the Mother of the Gods was a paradox. Conflict and resolution were played out symbolically, Munn shows, and the goddess of Lydian tyranny was eventually accepted by the Athenians as the Mother of the Gods and a symbol of their own sovereignty.

A Dictionary of Asian Mythology

A Dictionary of Asian Mythology
Author: David Leeming
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2001-05-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0195120531

This is an A-Z dictionary of mythologies of the Asian continent. Major characters, places and events of Asian mythology, as well as certain relevant themes and cultural traditions are included.

In the Land of a Thousand Gods

In the Land of a Thousand Gods
Author: Christian Marek
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 820
Release: 2018-12-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691182906

This monumental book provides the first comprehensive history of Asia Minor from prehistory to the Roman imperial period. In this English-language edition of the critically acclaimed German book, Christian Marek masterfully employs ancient sources to illuminate civic institutions, urban and rural society, agriculture, trade and money, the influential Greek writers of the Second Sophistic, the notoriously bloody exhibitions of the gladiatorial arena, and more.

The Gods at Play

The Gods at Play
Author: William Sturman Sax
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 239
Release: 1995
Genre: Gods, Hindu.
ISBN: 9780195091014

God is playful. Like a child building sand castles on the beach, God creates the world and destroys it again. God plays with his (or her) devotees, sometimes like a lover, sometimes like a mother with her children, sometimes like an actor in a play.The idea of God's playfulness has been elaborated in Hinduism more, perhaps, than any other religion, providing one of the most distinctive and charming aspects of Indian religious life. Lila or "divine play" can refer to many things: to God's playful creation of the world and to religious dramas or "plays," as well as to various motifs in Hindu art. But despite the importance of lila in the cultural history of South Asia, few comprehensive studies of it are available, partly because scholars have tended to emphasize only one dimension of lila--either the theological or the performative--at the expense of the other. The Gods at Play fills this gap by bringing together scholarly essays on all aspects of this important Hindu idea, providing students with a broader understanding of popular Hindu culture and religion.

Shinra Myōjin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean”

Shinra Myōjin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean”
Author: Sujung Kim
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2019-11-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0824881737

This ambitious work offers a transnational account of the deity Shinra Myōjin, the “god of Silla” worshipped in medieval Japanese Buddhism from the eleventh to sixteenth centuries. Sujung Kim challenges the long-held understanding of Shinra Myōjin as a protective deity of the Tendai Jimon school, showing how its worship emerged and developed in the complex networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean”—a “quality” rather than a physical space defined by Kim as the primary conduit for cross-cultural influence in a region that includes the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan (East Sea), the East China Sea, and neighboring coastal areas. While focusing on the transcultural worship of the deity, Kim engages the different maritime arrangements in which Shinra Myōjin circulated: first, the network of Korean immigrants, Chinese merchants, and Japanese Buddhist monks in China’s Shandong peninsula and Japan’s Ōmi Province; and second, that of gods found in the East Asian Mediterranean. Both of these networks became nodal points of exchange of both goods and gods. Kim’s examination of temple chronicles, literary writings, and iconography reveals Shinra Myōjin’s evolution from a seafaring god to a multifaceted one whose roles included the god of pestilence and of poetry, the insurer of painless childbirth, and the protector of performing arts. Shinra Myōjin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean” is not only the first monograph in any language on the Tendai Jimon school in Japanese Buddhism, but also the first book-length study in English to examine Korean connections in medieval Japanese religion. Unlike other recent studies on individual Buddhist deities, it foregrounds the need to approach them within a broader East Asian context. By shifting the paradigm from a land-centered vision to a sea-centered one, the work underlines the importance of a transcultural and interdisciplinary approach to the study of Buddhist deities.

Ganesh

Ganesh
Author: Robert L. Brown
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 1991-08-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0791497755

This book examines the complete Ganesh for the first time. Here is the God in his multiple forms from the different geographical areas in Asia. Particularly important are chapters that deal with his Buddhist and Tantric forms. The controversial question of his origins is also thoroughly discussed.

Mythology and Folklore in South-East Asia

Mythology and Folklore in South-East Asia
Author: Jan Knappert
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 342
Release: 1999
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN:

The first anthology in English of South-East Asian myths, this book is an engaging look at these rich storytelling traditions. It includes new translations of some shorter tales and concise paraphrases of longer epics. There are separate sections devoted to poetry, drama, proverbs, and prose from various regions and cultures. A wide range of readers will find themselves absorbed in the romance, tragedy, drama, and adventure of South-East Asian kings, princes, princesses, heroes and heroines, and ordinary people.

The Gods of Asia

The Gods of Asia
Author: T. S. Maxwell
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 352
Release: 1997
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Predominantly on the Hindu and Buddhist gods of Southeast Asia.

Religious Commodifications in Asia

Religious Commodifications in Asia
Author: Pattana Kitiarsa
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2007-11-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1134074441

This book addresses the growing academic concerns of the market-religion convergences in Asia. Bringing together a group of leading scholars from Asia, Europe, Australia and North America, it discusses multiple issues regarding religious commodifications and their consequences across Asia’s diverse religious traditions. Covering key issues in the anthropology and sociology of contemporary Asian religion, it draws theoretical implications for the study of religions in the light of the shift of religious institutions from traditional religious beliefs to material prosperity. The fact that religions compete with each other in a ‘market of faiths’ is also at the core of the analysis. The contributions show how ordinary people and religious institutions in Asia adjusted to, and negotiated with, the penetrative forces of a global market economy into the region’s changing religio-cultural landscapes. An excellent contribution to the growing demands of ethnographically and theoretically updated interpretations of Asian religions, Religious Commodifications in Asia will be of interest to scholars of Asian religion and new religious movements.