Entangled Religions最新文献

{"title":"Ars Congressus Cum Daemone: Aleister Crowley and the Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel","authors":"Henrik Bogdan","doi":"10.46586/er.14.2023.10265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46586/er.14.2023.10265","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses experiential knowledge in the writings of the British occultist Aleister Crowley’s (1875-1947) writings, and more specifically the so-called Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. I will first discuss Crowley’s own account of his attainment of communion with his Guardian Angel, which he set out to accomplish in 1900 and finally realised in 1906. Second, I will discuss a few key texts written by Crowley in which the method for attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is described, with a special focus on Liber Samekh (1920). The first part of this article can thus be seen as the practiced aspect of the Holy Guardian Angel experience, while the second part is the *prescribed* aspect. By way of concluding, I will address the entangled nature of the instructional texts of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.","PeriodicalId":36421,"journal":{"name":"Entangled Religions","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83614711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Meaning of agalma, eidôlon, and eikôn in Ancient Greek Texts: A Quantitative Approach Using Computer-Driven Methods and Tools","authors":"Thomas Jurczyk","doi":"10.46586/er.14.2023.10442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46586/er.14.2023.10442","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article analyzes the use and meaning of central Greek terms related to images in ancient Greek texts collected in the Diorisis Ancient Greek Corpus (Alessandro Vatri and McGillivray 2018). In contrast to the existing literature on the (religious) status of images in Greco-Roman Antiquity, Judaism, and Christianity, this article applies a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and computer-driven examinations with a qualitative analysis of selected sentences. The examination of the use and meaning of agalma, eidôlon, and eikôn considers various religious contexts (Jewish and Christian as well as Greco-Roman polytheistic), thereby embedding this article in the larger framework of comparative religious research on synchronic inter-religious contact. \u0000","PeriodicalId":36421,"journal":{"name":"Entangled Religions","volume":"277 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76085857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hiding and Revealing: Text and Image in Venantius Fortunatus’s Carmina","authors":"","doi":"10.46586/er.14.2023.10345","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46586/er.14.2023.10345","url":null,"abstract":"In his carmina, Venantius Fortunatus (sixth century) has left us three figurate poems that depict the cross as an image, while its verses describe the cross textually. He is thus an author who completely detaches figurate poems from the pagan tradition and inscribes them in the Christian one. The aim of this essay is to examine these poems from a pictorialist perspective. To this end, after a brief presentation of all three poems, they are considered, firstly, as ekphraseis that draw on a three-step representation: The figure depicts a cross that points to transcendence, the verses describe it, and they have the potential to evoke an additional mental image in the reader. Secondly, I examine what image and text, and thus the figurate poems as intermedial products, gain through the respective other medium. This results, thirdly, in an analysis of the figurate poems within the categories of iconism, aniconism, and anti-iconism.","PeriodicalId":36421,"journal":{"name":"Entangled Religions","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88150234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Early Twenty-First-Century Literary Images from the Margins of the Russian (Orthodox) World","authors":"M. Lecke","doi":"10.46586/er.13.2022.10221","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46586/er.13.2022.10221","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The paper analyzes two artistic artefacts, one graphic reportage and one novel from and about post-Soviet Georgia, focusing on the problem of religious difference within Orthodox Christianity. In imperial history, the fact that Georgia is an Orthodox Christian country was employed by the Russian side to legitimate the Georgian Church’s inclusion into the Russian ecclesiastic hierarchy and, what is more, of Georgia into the Russian empire. Georgian Orthodoxy was thus at least partly and in certain periods denied its religious autonomy. This parallels other strategic renouncements of differences from the Russian side, as for instance in the contemporary usage of the concept “Russian World” that combines the claim of “unity in faith” with language use and cultural consciousness into a mobilizing nationalist trope. The analysis of Viktoria Lomasko’s travel feature about Georgia and of Lasha Bugadze’s documentary novel “A Small Country” shows how contemporary artists and writers reassess the question of Georgia’s religious heritage and its difference from the Russian religious heritage. Whereas Lomasko is critical of the Georgian Church’s moral authority, she also gives ample room for presenting Georgian Orthdoxy’s difference as advantageous with regard to the Russian Church. Bugadze, by contrast, scrutinizes the Georgian Church’s fatal entanglement with the state that engendered both, nationalism and an uncanny allegiance with Russia. \u0000","PeriodicalId":36421,"journal":{"name":"Entangled Religions","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86702171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Wonders and Healings at the Crossroads of Manichaeism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism in Eastern Iran and Central Asia","authors":"A. Piras","doi":"10.46586/er.14.2023.10207","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46586/er.14.2023.10207","url":null,"abstract":"The early Sasanian period witnessed a variety of religious beliefs in competition. The clash between Kirdīr and Mani represents just an episode of the triumph the Mazdean church over Manichaeism, as well as over the other religious formations listed in Kirdīr’s inscriptions. Persian Zoroastrianism constituted a stronghold of power and religious hegemony at the heart of the Sasanian Empire. Yet, the peripheral Zoroastrianism of Eastern Iran and Central Asia featured aspects of regional Mazdeism, such as a wide variety of interactions between the Iranian and Indian cultures, and overt religious exchanges with Manichaeism, Buddhism and Islam. This article first examines the connotations of the word indicating ‘wonder’ and ‘miracle’ (Middle Persian *warz*, Parthian *warž*), and explores its thematic correspondences both within the shared Iranian language heritage (Avestan, Pahlavi, Middle Persian, Sogdian) and religious contexts (Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Buddhism). Its second aim is to extend this investigation into different Central Asian contexts of Sogdian Buddhism, taking into account specific Buddhist features. A close textual analysis finds that the interest in miracles is connected to healing. Thus, in the religious literature under analysis, miracles represent the medium of persuasion and conversion *par excellence*, but are also regarded as medical means to cure and save those in need, often through redeeming knowledge. The connections between medical healing and spiritual wisdom were generally associated with important religious personalities of the larger Indo-Mediterranean area, such as Buddha, Jesus and Mani, and with their messages of redemption. This article advances that ‘wonders’ and ‘healings’ represented efficacious notions employed to meet both primary needs of solace against suffering and angst and ardent searches for salvation. The article also highlights the link between the above binomial relation of wonders/healing and the political role of prophetical leaders, allegedly endowed with supernatural powers. As a case-study of this perspective, the article reviews the ideological and social developments of revolts, such as the Khurramiya movements in Islamic times, which exploited precisely this cultural baggage of practices of amazement and trickery for their own messianic propaganda.","PeriodicalId":36421,"journal":{"name":"Entangled Religions","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86731320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Manichaeism and Buddhism in Contact: The Significance of the Uyghur History and Its Literary Tradition","authors":"Yuki Kasai","doi":"10.46586/er.14.2023.9645","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46586/er.14.2023.9645","url":null,"abstract":"The exchanges between Manichaeism and Buddhism are one of the most-discussed topics in the religious study of Central Asia. Old Uyghur materials are often used in these discussions because the Uyghurs experienced the religious shift from Manichaeism to Buddhism. The sources attest that Manichaean and Buddhist communities co-existed under Uyghur rule, although the period of co-existence was limited. Thus, the texts produced in that period could show traces of exchange between these two religious communities. Previous studies, however, concentrate on the religious exchanges and do not consider the Uyghurs’ literary tradition, their historical background, and the language development in Old Uyghur. This paper re-examines the materials cited in previous studies, reconsiders exchanges between the two religious communities under Uyghur rule, and addresses the results of this survey.","PeriodicalId":36421,"journal":{"name":"Entangled Religions","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74478785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Shahrbānū's Recompense: Muslim and Non-Muslim Antagonists and the Hero-Imam in Rabīʿ’s Alī nāma","authors":"George Warner","doi":"10.46586/er.14.2023.9941","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46586/er.14.2023.9941","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the central antagonisms at work within the Alī nāma of Rabīʿ, a fifth/eleventh-century Persian epic by a Twelver Shīʿī poet narrating the deeds of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, in particular the battles of the Camel and of Ṣiffīn. It gives an analysis of this poem within its twin contexts of Shīʿī imamology and Persian poetry, illustrating how these fields are variously drawn upon, combined and challenged in the poem’s unique narrative of the imam, and arguing that Rabīʿ cultivates his oft-cited opposition between Arabo-Islamic truth-telling and Iranian/Zoroastrian deception as a means of navigating intra-Muslim sectarian dynamics. The article argues against reductionist views of the poem, demonstrating the hybrid nuance of its engagement with Sunnīs, Shīʿīs and the pre-Islamic past, as well as providing an overview of this under-studied work of literature.","PeriodicalId":36421,"journal":{"name":"Entangled Religions","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79800654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Śrāvastī Miracles: Some Relationships Between their Literary Sources and Visual Representations in Dvāravatī","authors":"Natchapol Sirisawad","doi":"10.46586/er.13.2022.9908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46586/er.13.2022.9908","url":null,"abstract":"The Śrāvastī miracles are among the Buddha’s principal miracles and could even be considered the prototypical Buddhist miracle stories. The narrative of these miracles is preserved in a variety of languages in different versions and is represented in the visual art of ancient India, Central Asia, as well as Southeast Asia. The objective of this study is to reexamine the visual representations of the Śrāvastī miracles found in the period of Dvāravatī, which spanned from the seventh to the eleventh centuries CE, via a comparative study of textual sources and their possible relationships to the 24 artefacts (9 types) found in the central, northeastern and southern parts of present-day Thailand. This study reveals that these artefacts illustrate important narrative elements from various Buddhist traditions, such as: (1) the demonstration of miracles (the miraculous growth of a tree and the multiplication of the Buddha, which comprises the Twin Miracle, the Great Miracle, the creation of the duplicate Buddha, and the performance of a miracle akin to the one experienced in the fourth absorption), (2) the depictions of the (six) defeated non-Buddhist ascetics, (3) of King Prasenajit, and (4) of Brahmā and Indra, bodhisattvas, and unspecified deities. The rich corpus of Dvāravatī artefacts illustrating these miracles implies that the artists might have clearly drawn their inspiration from various textual sources based mostly on the Theravādin and Mūlasarvāstivādin records. It is also possible that they were made based on known scriptures of that time, which in turn were the resultsof mixed interpretations of the Theravādin, Mūlasarvāstivādin, and other unknown texts. Alternatively, it is also possible that the visual representations do not reflect any connection to textual sources, as these artefacts cannot be attached to any particular Buddhist tradition and even less so to a specific “school.” These findings demonstrate how the key elements of a narrative from the literary sources have been transformed through visual representations, evidenced by these Dvāravatī artefacts showing their local formulation as well.","PeriodicalId":36421,"journal":{"name":"Entangled Religions","volume":"69 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89522025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Concept of Holy Rus’ in Russian Literary and Cultural Tradition: Between the Third Rome and the City of Kitezh","authors":"Oleksandr Zabirko","doi":"10.46586/er.13.2022.9964","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46586/er.13.2022.9964","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The paper explores the genealogy of the concept of Holy Rus’ (or Holy Russia) in Russian literature and culture from the nineteenth century onward. An integral part of Russian sacred geography, Holy Rus’ underwent some profound semantic transformations in order to become an epitome of religious and ethnic purity in the context of Russia’s imperial expansion. Focusing on the literary manifestations of Russia’s contacts with the ethnic and religious Other as well as on its struggle with the universalist claims of the European Enlightenment, the study highlights the colonial aspects of the notion of Holy Rus’, thus questioning its potential of providing a viable ‘indigenous’ alternative to the Western epistemological hegemony. Finally, the paper offers a critical review of the present-day exploitation of Holy Rus’ as a transcendental model of both a unifying national force and inter-confessional dialogue.\u0000","PeriodicalId":36421,"journal":{"name":"Entangled Religions","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89729499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Entangled Literary Genres in Syriac from Malabar in the Aftermath of the Synod of Diamper (1599)","authors":"R. Mustata","doi":"10.46586/er.11.2022.9901","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46586/er.11.2022.9901","url":null,"abstract":"During the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries, the Syriac literary heritage of the Malabar Christians shifted from a standard East Syriac (“Nestorian”) canon of texts to a Catholic post-Tridentine literary output in Syriac, a fusion of Western (Latin) and Middle Eastern (Syriac) sources and elements. The present article analyzes the literary networks of the community of the Malabar Christians, as expressed in the production of Syriac texts undertaken by the Catholic missionaries and arguably their Indian Syriacist pupils. The period under investigation is around the time of the Synod of Diamper (1599), a turning point in the ecclesiastical history of Malabar. The synod marked the Portuguese’s attempt to impose Tridentine Catholicism on the Malabar Christians and ordered to correct their Syriac books according to Catholic Orthodoxy or burn them as heretical. My paper focuses on the relationship between (1) collections of sermons and (2) liturgical poetry, since these two are entangled literary genres. Occasionally Syriac sermons (translated from Latin or composed on the spot by Catholic missionaries) were replicated in liturgical poetry and show the chains of transmission of Syriac knowledge from Catholic teachers (especially Jesuits) to their Indian students. Such relationship between literary genres comes clearly to the fore in the case of prose compositions coming arguably from the Syriacising circles of Francisco Ros, the first European Bishop of the Malabar Christians (1601-1624), and newly discovered pieces of Syriac poetry which might have been written by his Indian disciple Alexander the Indian/Kadavil Chandy Kattanar (1588-1673). The groups of texts under discussion show the transfer of knowledge from both the Latin West and the Syriac-speaking Middle East that created a new theological literary culture for the Malabar Christians as an expression of the Jesuit missionary principle of *accommodatio*. Source analysis of such texts allows one to dive into various aspects of the ecclesiastical and confessional life of the Malabar Christians, and into the cross-cultural encounters between them and the Catholic missionaries.","PeriodicalId":36421,"journal":{"name":"Entangled Religions","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91320635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}